First large work finished!!!

This is an accomplishment for me... i have just recently finished my first art piece that was larger than an ATC! Just a couple days ago, i finished a mixed media piece that was 8 by 8 inches :).

I just recently got hold of Sally Jean Alexander's book "Pretty Little Things". I am really enjoying her work. I am slowly working my way through, savoring each page as i go. So far, i have especially enjoyed her discussion of a collage creation technique. In this, she said to have 10 different techniques ready at hand. You then choose techniques at random from these 10, and do them in the order chosen.

So, for this, my 10 techniques i chose were slightly different than the ones she suggested. Mine were: acrylic, ink, oil pastel, sandpaper, collaged text, collaged image (photo, clipped etc), collaged paper, charcoal, watercolour and glaze. I cut a piece of watercolour paper to an 8 by 8 size. I then wrote all 10 techniques on a journaling page. I chose the techniques using the 'close your eyes and point' method.

Here is the order i ended up with:

1. Stamp (added faces and umbrella stamps)
2. Ink (splattered blue ink all over bg, didn't like how it turned out)
3. Acrylic (added a variety of colour spots in the background, added brown around face and three umbrella stamps. Didn't like colour spots)
4. Acrylic (painted over colour spots with a dark teal colour, much better in my mind)
5. Ink (used india ink to make lines and outlines on the page)
6. Glaze (added glaze of blue over green in bg
7. Oil pastel (added brown colour splotch)
8. Oil pastel (added word 'rain?' on brown splotch)
9. Text (ripped and glued paper frame around umbrella stamp)
10. Watercolour (added blue colour in white spots on canvas where stamps are.


So, there you have it. My first (somewhat) larger piece. I'm not saying it's huge or anything, it's only 8". But for me, that's a big step in the right direction :).

I'm not sure i would use this technique as a regular means of creating art, what with the media usage being so random. I don't like the way that you can't really plan as effectively where you are going with the piece, in some ways it somewhat distances you. However, as an exercise for playing with how different media go together, i find it perfect. The options for different media are endless. You could do this with a larger photo bg, and use things like 'bleach' or 'sand' and such instead of other methods. Although i do feel it distances you from your art and lessens the possibilities for both planning and creativity, it is also an enjoyable way of creating art where there is less pressure of the 'blank canvas' and less wondering what to do.

Wouldn't it be fun to try something like this, where a bunch of people make a collaborative list of different techniques/media and create art in this way for a swap or even simply a challenge? I'd love to try something like this. Maybe i will host something like this here on my blog? I wonder what kind of response i'd get? :) I think i'll just throw the idea out there now, and if you would be interested in something like this drop me a quick comment or something. :) If you are interested, would you want to do this as a challenge, with a prize for the a random participator, with maybe something small for each person who participates? Or would you prefer to have this as a swap, where we trade art? Let me know what you are thinking.

Come on, don't be shy :) :) :) I don't bite.... hard....