Photo Collage

We celebrated the new year with a Photo Collage lesson in First Friday Art Club in January 2018.  Hoarding a collection of nature photography which was donated by a patron and combining it with discarded magazines, we had a very busy afternoon of creating.

Clip and Arrange

A friend donated hundreds of printed photos of nature last year and I have been saving them for a program like this.  Beautiful images of flowers and insects helped set the mood for my collage.

Clipping for colors

I also had a stack of discarded magazines from the library collection.  Students were allowed to cut and paste images they chose.  The idea of inspiration boards or vision boards was mentioned as a goal for students who were stuck on all the cool images.

Morphed Creature

Vision boards were too limiting to some students.  Junho was determined to create new creatures and characters by morphing elements from other images.  He commented and gave a story line with each new creation, too!

Washington with a Wolf Sleigh

Soon enough scissors and papers were flying.  Characters were popping up and nature was taking shape on our canvas boards.  Things started to get silly with a team of siblings.  We discovered the fabulous feeling of a tech free Friday.

All About Me

Sophia's mission was an "All About Me" board.  She was a quick worker, cutting and gluing without waiting.  She told me as we worked that she does this type of craft at home.  Considering how much technology laden homes can be, it is impressive to find a young student who appreciates the original form of "Cut and Paste."

Work Quickly

We discovered how fast this program can go.  An hour and a half seemed a little too short for this process.  Jina planned to use more of her family photos, but felt rushed to have a final project before she left, so she worked with the images she had pre-cut from magazines.

Very Geometric

It seemed that that we just started to have fun when we only had 10 minutes to finish and clean up.  Therefore, some things got rushed.  I never heard the final story about George Washington or the other morphed character.  The only message we see is to "Leave a Legacy for Wildlife."  We will call that piece, "Beyond Abstract."

Roy G. Biv

Believe it or not, it took the full class time to have a visit from Roy G. Biv.  The color stripes look fabulous, but this piece is not complete.  The artist decided to take it home to continue working.

Mod Podge it Up

After all image elements were in place, I recommended sealing everything in with Mod Podge.  The jar we have dries to a high gloss finish, despite the look of it when wet.  Sophia was the first to get a coating before she left.

Trim the Edges

Some students wanted to have images go off of the canvas.  I said that is a great idea. We call that "Breaking the Box."  Younger students can identify with this idea by coloring outside the lines.  For some students, they wanted a clean edge, so trimming was required.

Elmer's Skin

In our rush to finish, this student realized how gross and fun gluey skin can be.  I remember having so much glue on my hands in art class, I would wait for it to dry, so I could peel it off like skin.  This was totally a thing in the last century (yes, I am that old).  Do students get to play like this today or is technology stealing this experience?

Winter Bouquet

Even with teaching this class, I was able to create my own Photo Collage.  My goal was to brighten my office space during the winter doldrums.  Although I worked quickly, I still need to add a coat of Mod Podge to seal in the edges.  After a weekend on my desk in a warm building, the edges of several images curled up.  A coat of glue will flatten all of it to a smooth surface.

This wraps up another fun First Friday Art Club.  Visit us in February when we paint "Acrylic Cats with Filomena Jack."  Its sure to be a hoot....or a Meow!

Catch you on the Flip Side!
xo,
Erica

harp & heART with Maryalice Little

Maryalice Little is a harpist who has been training as a certified clinical musician with Harp for Healing.  She inquired to have an opportunity to use her therapeutic music in a youth art program.  First Friday Art Club came to mind and we immediately got busy planning the event.

The beautiful harp

The plan we created was for Maryalice to play several musical pieces, each with a different tempo and rhythm, including recognizable music and improvisational sounds.  For each song or piece of music played, students were given a different implement to make marks on their page. We started the class with graphite pencils.  

Something Familiar

Since pencils are a familiar medium for most students, familiar imagery developed during this segment.  The goal for this class was to let the harp music speak to the heart and create marks on paper using a variety of media.  Making marks is a unfamiliar concept to students who usually have an assigned image to create.  It is very rare for students to test the range of mark making, but it is highly valuable to the artistic process.

Let the music lead the way

The Tate Museum website describes a mark with this excerpt. Mark making describes the different lines, dots, marks, patterns, and textures we create in an artwork. It can be loose and gestural or controlled and neat. It can apply to any material used on any surface: paint on canvas, ink or pencil on paper, a scratched mark on plaster, a digital paint tool on a screen, a tattooed mark on skin…even a sound can be a form of mark making. Artists use gesture to express their feeling and emotions in response to something seen or something felt – or gestural qualities can be used to create a purely abstract composition.

Process through the music

Thinking of sound as a mark, the room was full of inspiration.  Allowing the music to inspire the physical marks on paper set aside thoughts from the day, problems in one's life and kept students in the present time.  This process does not require much thought.  Process feelings and thoughts through the music and leave them on the page.

Dedicated mission

Even with a light and simple expectation for gestural marks on paper, some students had a dedicated mission to continue their daily sketches.  Sometimes comics shine in any medium.

Graphite to Color

After testing graphite pencils, students switched to colored pencils for another option with a different musical set.  This budding artist started to respond to my own erratic scribbling and let the shapes fly into repeat.

Marker Marks

Colored pencil transitioned to markers.  This was the favored media for most students.  This class preferred markers over all our media experiments.  "It's so close to painting." said one very vocal student.

Oil pastels

The last segment of the class introduced a mostly new medium to the class.  Oil pastels are fun to work with and glide over paper so smoothly.  "They make your hands dirty!" complained one student.  I was happy to hear they had the opportunity to experiment with oil pastels in the past.  Despite oil pastels making hands easily messy, they provide a blending option not possible with markers or colored pencils.

Free Flowing

Maryalice ended her musically inspired session with a free flowing, improvisational piece that jumped around and had no recognizable rhythm.  This student reflected that free flowing feel by experimenting with oil pastels.  She appreciated the texture the paper revealed when the pastel was scribbled across the surface.  This revelation is most often the spark for new work with an artist.  Test the waters and work with what floats best.

This wraps up another fun First Friday Art Club at the Southeast Steuben County Library.  Check back here in November to see the wondrous creatures developed during Calligraphy Birds & Beasts with Wynn Yarrow.

register today!

Thanks for visiting,

Erica 

Ps.  Maryalice will offer harp & heART to adults, 18 years and older, on Saturday, November 18, 2017 from 12-3 pm in the library for the Saturday Adult Art class series called Crystal City Creators.  Space is limited, so register today.

You won't want to miss this class!