Yesterday during my art class with my teenage student I made a painted paper collage. Just for fun. And did have fun. Before making art quilts and images on fabric, I spent a few years working with paper collage on canvas. Loved it! Saved every piece of paper I could find like a magpie and made all sorts of neat mixed media things. When I discovered how to do something similar with fabric, which allowed for beads, the paper stuff was left behind (and is rolled up in my barn somewhere. Hope the raccoons haven't used it for bedding!) Yesterday I played with a small canvas, 8"x10" and made a base collage that I hope to paint on and embellish a bit with some relief elements. I returned to a theme I love but wore out with fabric quilts -- ancient pottery. I'm thinking that the collage can be scanned onto fabric and turned into a little art quilt, too. This is fun! This might be what I do with my summer vacation, in addition to the formal art quilting stuff that has to get done.
Like Odilon Redon used to do, I need to buy myself a bunch of flowers today so that I can have models to observe on my art table. He used flowers because of the colorful organic forms and the fact that they were inexpensive to obtain. I love working with flower images, too, and think they complement ancient pottery pretty well. The great thing about being an artist is that the possibilities for creating never end, and when given the time,space, and intent, art will naturally happen. Magic!
What will you make today?