In The Studio
For the last few months I’ve been working on an 80cm collage on board.
Working on most pieces takes the form of a lengthy, stop-start process, with long gaps while I work out what I want to change. In a collage change is not too difficult. It can be achieved either by adding more translucent layers, or wetting the surface and doing a bit of ‘wallpaper scraping’ and peeling off which actually can be exciting since unplanned edges and alterations to the form happen.
This first image shows an early stage:
At this point, in terms of the composition, I had already felt the need to remove some blue sky areas, and reduce what had been an extensive patterned grey area bottom right. I was also feeling uncomfortable with the floating hut top right. So I applied yellow tissue sheets (painted with acrylic ink), to see if these might link or unify the composition.
Not quite satisfied, I then considered how I could link the two sides of the composition and came up with this: showing a detail of the device I used – a painted-on suggestion of a fence and a few objects that might be boating kit.
The following slideshow shows subsequent changes that I made until I was satisfied with the composition. It is a mixture of shots of the whole piece, and 8 detailed images showing close ups of areas of surface textures that I’m really pleased with.