This week is spring break for the island schools, and my husband and son are up North skiing. I stayed home with the dogs to work. However, part of me decided since it was vacation week, I would take a break from my daily sketches and start experimenting with collage and mixed media at night, a vacation from my usual routine.
I had some sketches that I’d printed out when I was first learning how to use my printer, and they did not print right. I decided to see what would happen if I applied collage techniques and painted back in to them.
It was a struggle and a mess. For example, I tried applying masking tape to mask the edges and keep them clean, but the tape stuck and tore at the paper, so I ended up painting the edges as well. I pasted one drawing on top of the other, but didn’t line them up correctly and it stuck on skewed. With no idea what I was doing, I doodled on the piece with pen, painted into it with acrylics, added charcoal pencil, and pasted cut up sketches on it.
Each time I put a mark on the piece, it ended up not at all as I’d intended, one accident after another. Fingers sticky from glue and paint, I experimented and finally filled it to capacity.
Last night (and today) I worked on a piece entirely from my imagination. I drew wall paper patterns and layered them in the drawing, added an abstract figure reading, added some crows, and then printed the drawing and pasted, painted and drew back over it.
My visual vocabulary is so very different when I’m not trying to draw what I see, but rather am just putting marks on a canvas. The disparity bothers me. I hope if I keep experimenting and working at it that a more unified voice will emerge.
I want to keep exploring this direction of expression – so I’m extending my stay-cation past the spring break week, and am looking forward to more accidents, surprises and challenges.