Class 2 ~ Self Portrait Collage; Step by Step

This was a bit of an adventure! I've never really documented my process before (even for myself), so it was really fun to work on. First of all, to think about what I'd use. I'm still just using images out of that same issue of Oprah (although it's getting a little thin!). But I wanted to walk you through my process step by step, so you can see it develop. I genuinely have no idea where things will wind up when I start. Sometimes if goes off the rails and needs to be collaged over, sometimes the perfect thing appears right when you need it. Here we go!

Layer 1: Scraped and/or stencilled paint. I don't always use paint as a base layer. Sometimes I use a single large magazine image (or overlapping images collaged together). My goal is to cover the blank white page, to start generating a colour palette I want to work with. This page started off by scraping on Cadmium Yellow paint, followed by iridescent blue-green and dark blue through a stencil.

Scraped paint. Notice how I left a few white spaces? I might want to add another colour later.

A random border around the edges with a stencil. Just as I mentioned in class, I start with the lightest colour and work my way towards the darker colour. This is so the darker colour doesn't overwhelm the piece too early.

I haven't added anything to the page this time, but I wanted to show you that the stencil I used is a woman in a headdress. But I just used the edges of her headdress randomly placed around the edges of the pages, not the whole stencil. Clever, hm?

Layer 2: Borders and edges. I want to add more collage elements to frame the overall page. At this point, I'm not thinking about WHAT the thing is, I'm thinking about colour, texture and balancing dark and light. Here's what I cut out of the magazine:

I'm keeping to the blue/yellow colour scheme, and adding in some brown and black for depth. I've also picked out some chunky text words just for fun, but I don't really have a plan yet.

And here's what happened:

Wow! That got pared down pretty quick. OUTREACH became REACH OUT. I cut up RALPH LAUREN to become PH (my initials) and REAL, which compositionally looked best across from the "I am". I wasn't very happy with "I am REAL". It seemed too ... predictable. But I liked how it looked so I let it be. 

Layer 3: Adding in big pieces of collage. Since the exercise was to make a self-portrait, I used the same template I gave all of you. I knew I was going to be working in blues and yellow, and since the background was yellow, then the face needed to be blue. Oh yay, a blue face, like *that's normal*. Oh well, never mind. I also cut out some eyes and lips from random ads, not sure of which ones would look best. In the end I chose oversize eyes (they roughly match my eye colour) and I liked how they were engaging the viewer. I chose neutral lips since I think of myself as kind of pensive and quiet. Below are the bits I started with and how it turned out:

Just some random eyes and mouths. Oh, a blue face. and a *knitted* neck? Oh dear!

Uh .. not bad. A goodish start on a face. Notice how the texture on the face creates a kind of nose? That bit was planned, and I discovered it by using the template I gave you as as a viewfinder. I knew it would make it easier to create a "nose" later.

Layer 4: Fine details, add more collage elements. Now it's starting to get fun. I can see how it all fits together, but it feels a bit "surfacy". I need to create some depth (by adding dark colours and shadows) and unifying all the bits and pieces into a cohesive whole. And I'm still not in love with that "I am REAL" text. Maybe a solution will pop into my head ... I hope so because those letters are STUCK DOWN good. And luckily, something does ... 

TA DA!

So ... this is where the collage finished up. I wrote out some text from the exercise on page 5 of the handouts (which I'll post below), and cut them into textblocks and laid them on the facing page. I drew black boxes around them, and dotted lines connecting them to the face. I added some funky active hair, and drew in some zentangly lines around the outside edges of the pages. While doing that I realized I had room to draw LY after the REAL to make; REALLY. So, now the top text reads: I am REALLY ... and then it reads straight into the text blocks below. So it looks like it was my genius plan from the start. But it wasn't. To soften the starkness of the yellow background, I smudged some rusty gold distress crayon onto the places on the paper where the yellow paint hadn't gone. 

Here's the last page of the handouts, which includes the template you can cut out to create your own self portrait. The writing exercise will provide you with some words to use in your collage.

Here's how I used this handout in my journal:

I've used washi tape along one edge of the cut text pieces so I can flip them open to read. I glued the template into my journal because I have the cardstock one I handed out in class. To make your own cardstock template, glue the head diagram onto cardstock and cut out the shaded area.

Next class (October 11), we're looking at mindfulness and creative ways to do that. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving ... !