Collage Mixed Media Project

Ideas for Summer Projects
Summer break is almost here! I will have more time to create! If you are looking for a summer project to work on, a collage with mixed media is a fun project!

Mixed Media Collage

Today I thought I would share a mixed media project that I created for fun and as an example for a student project at school.  We often use old donated magazines in the classroom. This project is a mixed media collage, using magazines and acrylic paints.

Arkansas Home Theme
Since I create my little clay houses and clay house tiles, I decided to go with a Home theme and Arkansas theme to create a house with a fence and tree.  I used a stack of one of my favorite Arkansas magazines (At Home in Arkansas) to cut out Arkansas details, words, maps, and colors to put together to create my image.

Supplies I used:
Canvas Board
Old Magazines
Acrylic Paint and Brushes
Drawing Paper
Glue sticks
ModPodge

After cutting out words, patterns, colors and shapes out of the magazines, I began arranging the pieces that I had. I went back to the magazines when I needed additional colors and images.
I created a house shape with strips of magazine cuttings adding some details with paint.  For example, I decided to create a tree and needed some leaves but I did not have enough so I cut leaf shapes out of green paper to create the rest of the leaves. I wanted an owl in the tree so I drew and painted a little owl on drawing paper, cut it out and glued it into the tree.

The sidewalk on the bottom edge of this piece was made up of map pieces and words pieced together. Cutouts of flowers were also added to create flower beds.

ModPodge was brushed on top of the entire piece after I was finished adding pieces. This helps to seal the pieces of paper to the surface.

Altered Book Project Update and Spring Break

Well Spring Break is more than half over. I haven't worked much on art yet, but the rest of the week will be devoted to creative time.  The first half of the week(and weekend), was taken up with time spent visiting family. It was nice to get out of town for a few days, but as always, it was nice to get home.  Yesterday I spent some time adding some things to my Etsy shop. I have several things to add, but each one takes time, so I have to work on a few at a time. 

Spring is officially here and I finally saw some trees and daffodils blooming this week. The weather has been nice, but it is supposed to change tomorrow and get cooler.  So it will be easy to stay inside and work on art related projects! But I will be looking for more signs of Spring and warmer weather to come.

I mentioned in an earlier post, that one of my classes is working on Altered Book projects.  These are made from discarded books and can be made into anything you can imagine. They could be made into journals, scrapbooks, or simply a work of art.  Here are some photos of more of my pages from the altered book project.  This is definitely a project to work on over time (at least for me). I have painted and glued together more pages.  Some pages are completely painted, some are painted partially allowing the text and illustrations to show through the paint.

This is the Title Page of the Book, "Drawing with Ink".  I have painted a glaze over both pages allowing some of the text and illustrations from the book to show through.  This is just step 1.  I will be adding more things to these pages as I go.

Step One:  Starry Night Page

These two pages were simply painted blue with some swirls. There was an image of a handprint on the right side page that I allowed to show through the paint. 

Step Two:  Starry Night Page

Here I have glued an image and some text that was on one of the pages that I removed from the book.  It is an illustration of Vincent Van Gogh with some biographical info. in the text.  I tore the edges to roughen up the look.  I will be adding more to these pages in the future and I will post some updated pictures when I do.

Tips for altering books (so far):

~ remove several pages throughout the book. The pages will get thicker as you add paint and glue things onto the pages. This will help keep the thickness of the book manageable. You will probably want it to close when its finished.  I removed pages that did not have elements that I want to use in my design and I removed some with images that I will glue onto other pages. 

~ glue some pages together to create a more rigid surface to paint on.  Look for images or text that can be used in your design.  You can cut 'windows' in some pages to allow the next page to partially show through.

~ Take photos of the book before you begin...I forgot to do that! And more photos as you go. I like to look at the progress and it helps to have step by step photos when teaching a new project.  This is my first altered book, so I need examples to show my students.  I also have some books that shows altered book techniques, to show my students.

I'm working on more pen and ink drawings this week. I will post photos when I finish the set of 2 drawings.  I finished this one a few weeks ago.


Pen and Ink Home Portrait
8 x 10 inches

Thanks for looking!

Beth♥

Experimenting with Texture, Paint, and Collage

"Paris Eiffel Tower"
Beth S. Macre © 2008

Acrylic Paint on canvas

As an art teacher, I am constantly looking for new projects for my 3rd and 4th year students. Since these students have been with me for 3 and 4 years, they need more and more challenging projects each year. Some of my students really love a challenge and I really enjoy seeing what they come up with. The latest challenge that we all took on together, was to create a map relief textured painting. They could choose a map of any place, pick out the interesting lines and shapes to create an abstract or semi-abstract design. The only other requirements were that they should use a gel molding paste to create textured relief parts. I told them they could add pieces of fabric, wire, paper, or other items if they wished to create a collage effect. I also showed them a few ways to add texture to the molding paste to create different effects. Some of which I included in my "Eiffel Tower Map of Paris" piece shown here.

When I applied the molding paste, I laid a piece of wire mesh on top of the wet paste and pressed it on, using a pallette knife, then removed the wire mesh, leaving the texture. You can see a close up of the textures in the 2nd and 3rd photos here. The textures show up after they are painted with layers of paint of a variety of colors. To see it larger, click on the image.

For my painting I used a map of Paris, from my trip last summer. I also collaged a cut out photo that I took of the Eiffel Tower and printed in grayscale, then painted around the edges and some on top of the paper.

This was one of those projects that I really had fun with and plan to do more using the molding gel. I really love the effects that you can create with the textures. One of my goals for 2009 is to do more of this type of painting.

Tomorrow I will be doing some studio cleaning and thinking about the rest of those goals for 2009.

Hope you have a happy and safe New Year!

~Beth~

Seasons of Trees

This tree is created with colored pencil scribbles on cut white paper on black paper. I first cut the white paper into a tree shape, spreading out the white paper on the black background paper, glued the white paper down. Then I started adding the scribbles for the colors. I wanted to show the stages of the seasons that the tree goes through during a year. The scribbling was a little scarey at first, but it got easier the more I added. I've seen other colored pencil artists use the scribbling technique that I wanted to try. Specifically John Smolko, the award winning artist known for this technique. This tree is experimental and I enjoyed the process. Maybe I will try another one soon. Right now I am working on another tree, but not scribbling. I will post it when I finish.