Self Portrait With Close Ups

Collage from acrylic painted papers...just a stroke or two of colour on top. Most of my things are done in less than two hours......but I worked on this for 4-6 hours. It went through a lot of changes and has many pieces. I had to rewet the back and clamp it under a tall stack of books to get it to lay reasonably straight.

....started in the AP class to show them that a work can be built, decision by decision. It is better to make more decisions rather than fewer decisions...complicate, and if that becomes too much, then simplify. One learns by making more and more decisions. Adding is a decision...and so is taking away.

A Simple Act

The school year is ending and we are busy making great collages right to the end. Other classes are painting so of course all sorts of paint is left over. At day's end I can easily spend an extra hour in the studio just mixing and spreading paint onto papers....and it is a completely pleasing process. The point is just to use the colour and mix every conceivable variety and viscosity of paint from fully opaque to very transparent. When all the final work is done in the school studio before dismissing for holidays, I will look through this left over collection and find the most appealing things to incorporate into my summer collage paintings at home. It is odd but sometimes the colours produced at school end up being very different from the ones made at home. It'll be hard keeping the boxes and boxes of colour over summer and into the new academic year because the studio fills up with so much material. It has to go just so we can fill it up again.....but the colours always look wonderful to me. One day there might have been a lot of leftover purples, another day blues....and unpremeditated collections get made...so many unexpected combinations possible....so many great paintings just quietly hiding in the tangle of paper.