Colour Challenge and Collage

I have played more with art this past week than in all of the past year!

Leah Piken Kolidas’s Colour Art challenge at Creative Every Day has finally been the push for me to create, rather than just read about or look at, art.

I have loved visiting so many different art blogs through Creative Every Day and “12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women” book club. But, I was not creating.

I even joined an online art class – Media Collage backgrounds at Creative Workshops to spark my creativity.

This week I have hopefully turned the corner. Thanks Leah!

My project for the April 13-19 challenge is a colour collage. Leah suggested using colour we normally do not use. After creating the Full Pink Moon Dreamboard, shades and tints of pink seemed to jump out of magazines. I had such fun yesterday creating my “pink” palette collage.

Collage has always been one of my favourite forms of art. I use collage a lot when teaching children. Children seem to love the freedom of collage, as do I.

One of the best descriptions of collage came from a former student, age 8: “I love collage. You get to glue a whole bunch of stuff together.”

I love the uncertainty when you start a collage, the variety of “stuff” you can use, the fun of just playing.

When my own children were young we spent many summers in Haliburton, Ontario taking courses at the School of Fine arts there. It was a great way to combine a week’s holiday at the cottage with the excitement of creating, with each of us keeping busy each day with something we loved to do.

I tried many different techniques and classes – from basket weaving to silk screening, from watercolour to design. My favourite though, was the watercolour media collage course. Here is a sampling of some of my creations from this course.