Cut-out and Collage

Some days just the motion of putting paint on paper is therapeutic and stimulating, especially when I don't have the head for much more! I like to use this exercise to unwind, losing myself in colour and texture, and save the pages for a later day.

The below was originally a page of squares of shades of purple in oil paint. A colour exploration. One Saturday afternoon, I decided to cut it up into floral shapes and collage it onto paper. In the end, neither the colour nor the squares were important, but the brush-marks have imparted a painterly style to an otherwise graphic design. I know there are ways to do this digitally, with clipping masks and layers. But theres something about collage as a hand-craft that is simply fun and experimental. I spend all day staring at a screen, any break is welcome. But I did use Photoshop to go to town on the colour and scale variations.

This one was originally a sheet of paper where I was testing the quality of metallic ink over paint. I know it isn't the most exciting collage but it did inspire me to play more with texture and layering once in Photoshop. I think this overlay is something I will explore more to give more dimension to prints.

/EA