Friday, October 21, 2011

Gesso to transform magazine pages for collage


After the Storm
After reading a recent post by Martha Marshall about painting magazine pages to use for collage I decided to spend a few hours with my pot of gesso and a few decorating magazines. I ended up with a big stack of interesting paper which, coupled with some of my painted tissue papers, are great fun to use.  I called this one "After the Storm" because it reminds me of dark skies and whirling winds contrasted with blue sky and autumn color breaking through.

I particularly like this method of concealing the images on the original pages and changing them into something that shows my own hand at work, yet takes advantage of the ink colors.

(I'm having trouble with Blogger so I couldn't add the size to the caption... It's 6.5" x 8", matted in an 8x10 mat.)

I've had success with keeping a few different sized mats near my collage table to audition the art I'm making. As I work I view the piece through a mat window and it give me a good sense of what work is still needed or whether I'm finished.

10 comments:

  1. Jo, this is beautiful!! Thank you for showing us. I would love to try it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. so interesting...any pointers on this technique? Love the outcome!

    ReplyDelete
  3. just checked out that artist's link...yet another wonderful path of exploration ahead! Thanks Jo! Also love the collage from yesterday. I'll tell you- doing them is soooo addictive!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Go for it, Jane. and Marge, I don't really know that there's a particular method. I used an old brush, fairly thick gesso, and painted over images and colors that appealed to me for some reason. Thanks for your notes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Angie Rea Jensen6:34 AM PDT

    Now i finally know what to do with that stack of magazines that has been in the corner. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Really like this piece, wonderful design elements

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love this one and would love to see more!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jo, I hit "post" before I said thank you for the mention of my blog!! That's so nice of you.

    :)

    Martha

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really like your latest way of doing collage! Inspiring!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Jo this is a lovely collage! I was intrigued by the technique and followed your link to Martha's. Something I would really like to try.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate comments and questions.