Matt, a Torn Paper Collage Painting, SWA Program, by Arlington TX Collage Artist Nancy Standlee

Nancy Standlee Art Blog showcases paintings of acrylic, collage, mixed media, watercolor, plein air and workshop experiences.

You are invited to attend the Fort Worth SWA (Society of Watercolor Artists) meeting Monday evening, March 18, 2013, 7:00 PM for a talk and demo on the art of collage painting in watercolor, acrylic and torn paper collage. It will be more talk than demo as collage is a very lengthy process and not one you would want to sit and watch until completion.  Probably the most time is taken up with choosing your papers and I will bring papers torn and ready and not stand in front of my audience looking at magazines! But the portrait will not be finished for some weeks but I will post updates on my blog and Facebook. 

Images can be projected, taken to a print shop and blown up, use a poster program  or if you are a good drawer just draw directly on the canvas. I am not a good drawer so I trace my image in pencil then go over it with a black permanent marker. I want a good exact likeness to begin with as collage will distort the image and pencil lines will blur and fade. I see that I have his right eye a little exaggerated so will make a note to be careful here.

The portrait collage will be of a grandson, Matt, who is attending UTA and needs a painting to decorate his room and I needed a subject for my talk. Also, for weeks I’ve been sorting some papers and I always want to collage when I start looking at paper. This 20″ size will be easy to see for a demo; however, SWA uses a projection system instead of an overhead mirror so there should be no problem. 

Matt is a musician and a magician so I have lots of personal choices to add for interest but I was not familiar with his favorite band, movie, or game but there is a very big age gap here.  I recall the text from one of my sons when I was working on his portrait collage and wanting  some personal info to add about his favorite color, food, and song and I got 3 lines of text back “red, hamburger, For the Good Times”. I have been to the printer today and printed some playing card images and other personal names to use.

 The photo I’m working from was taken at my daughter’s house Thanksgiving 2012. I like the red wall background and since his favorite color is a crimson I will try to incorporate that somewhere in the background of the painting.

Matt, cropped to a square format and if you want to try a collage of a friend try to get some light and shadow in your photo so you can have some different values in the face. Decide your darkest dark and your lightest light and start gluing. Until I get my confidence up, I will start in a background area, somewhere that’s not the face. For comparison of colors and values, it’s also good to put down a piece of paper in the darkest, lightest and medium areas to compare.

Remember the Canvas by Canvas show is going on at the Breckenridge Art Center in Breckenridge, TX until April 13, 2013. Check their website for hours and thanks to all you came to the lovely reception March  10.

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