MAKE A COLLAGE,
AN ALTERED IMAGE...
CHALLENGE,CUT,STICK
Yep,so I put my hand up for a college challenge. It was swap with another person, with a parcel of stuff to cut and stick from somewhere else around the world.
Now,I am not always the most organised person,(like lots of creative types?)and I tend to take a lot on,sometimes exceeding what I really can achieve...and I have a really really busy life.Fantastic, but busy.In a good way.
For whatever reason, my lovely, talented, fabulous swap partner did not get around to posting my swap package. I am not in any way going to pass judgement here...we never know what is going on in another person's life. In fact, all of us have our own internal and external landscape,and no-one else traverses it except the person who lives in it.No point getting persnicketty!She is an awesome gal, and we are going to be pen friends regardless...I hope she is okay!
So,with deadline approaching for submission with the collage,I decided to just plunge in,raid my paper stash,and get sticking.
The theme for the challenge'New Landscapes' had me completely bamboozled.Challenged!I normally have a pretty clear idea in my head what I am going for...not this one!
Hoping for inspiration to strike...I began cruising through old national Geographic magazines.The irony of getting ideas about new landscapes in old magazines made me think.
And I found an image of what was supposed to be a 'modern, new futuristic city',and thought...you know, what is new really? Nothing ever stays new, it is fleeting.And what is landscape? Landscape can mean the landscape in the usual sense of a view of an environment, but it can also mean 'the lay of the land', the general environment of how something is perceived.
Probably what has changed most since then,when this image was published,is the whole idea that we cannot just build gigantic cities with no regard for the environment.The whole 'landscape' of architecture and town planning has altered.New cities today have lots of 'green' aspects, environmental considerations, and an awareness of human impact.
My brain ticked over...green, overtaking the new...the new, overtaking the new.
Then I started thinking about movies I had seen, where cities had been abandoned, and nature had began reclaiming its ground.There is also a Talking Heads song..."once there were factories, now it's all covered in daisies"...and it was going around in my head.
So...I got sticking. The idea really, is this a new city, surrounded by and integrating green power, or is it an old city/landscape, being reclaimed and made new again by nature?
I wanted to make something ambiguous,so that the viewer could make up their own mind about what is new.And this is how and why I made my 'New Landscapes" collage.
detail shots of collage
.jpg)
And..the finished collage...NEW LANDSCAPE, 2015
For this,I used old magazines,an old children's book,watercolour paints and ink, on watercolour paper.
I would love to try doing another one...we will see.It's a lot of fun, cutting, sticking, moving things around,playing with shapes and position.
Do you collage? Do you cut up and stick things, draw on them,play with altered images?If you have not tried it,go ahead, give it a go...if you do collage, then you know what I mean about it being fun!The great thing is,like with all art,there is no right or wrong.Just give it a go....and look on Pinterest for inspiration.