Collage exploration #3

Before it got lost in the stash of papers again, I thought I ought to make something with the die-cut butterfly outline I’d started with on the last mini collage.

The previous collages have been mostly made of pages taken from magazines, for this one I primarily picked papers that I had painted. The obvious exception is the “exclamation mark” which was cut from a landscape; I needed something with sharper edges and deeper colour to contrast with the softer painted pieces.

As I was working on this, I started thinking that I really need a bit more direction in my experimentation. Responding to the papers I have will result in some things I like (like the very first one in this series), but there will also be a lot that are at best, just okay. Now, there is nothing wrong with failures — I can learn a lot from creating things I don’t like — but the learning process can be slow when you’re relying solely on your own brain to come up with new ideas. So I’m off to find some inspiration.