Tag Archives: collage

Cleaning up the Studio = Finishing & Futzing!

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

My studio gets messy! I experiment, and there failures! I work by trying more than by planning, and in the heat of creation I try, set aside, and try something else. Parts, scraps, and more just pile up. Something that does not work in one piece may look extremely promising for another concept! Or may just look so interesting where I set it down that I have to take a few photos!

And then there is my household business in one corner, file folders out of the cabinet to be sorted and “archived”, etc. along with remnants of family history, old drawings of my own or by children, and more.

And the time comes when this must be dealt with, in order to allow new work, and some peace and sanity! It seems to be that time again now.

The above pieces were deemed incomplete, and therefore were somewhat annoying to me. The “incomplete” flat file is huge, and not yet full, but … it should never be allowed to fill up! So now maybe these are as complete as they will ever be. Not great works, but OK!

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Parting: Sad Angels

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

This is a scan of (most of) a mostly finished collage using two of my drawings. The “sad angels” started as a graphite drawing, which I scanned as usual. I created a couple of digital variations, then worked further on the printed pieces to finish these three sad angels. The abstract wooded scene scan has been enlarged, and is also further modified after printing. The figures, leaf drawing, and feather print are attached with matte medium.

The collage is a little too big for my scanner, so the top & both sides are cropped. And of course I cannot resist trying out a digital foil variation:

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Refinement

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have refined my watercolor collage sketch a bit, rescanning and working with digital variations. Sometimes I spend a long time in my chosen manipulation software in order to make my transformations and enhancements. It is not always easy or quick selecting the desired sections of an artwork, and this especially true with watercolors that may bleed into each other, and on textured paper where shadows create variations our eyes and brains will generally ignore!

So in addition to working the original a bit, I have tried light and dark as the background frame, and applied different digital manipulations on the trees separated from the window and shadows.

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Quick Collage

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I created this watercolor & collage “sketch” last night in our weekly art group. In the two hour session, I worked quickly, trying to capture a bit of magic that I often see along my path to art class. When a certain large window is lit from inside, another neighbors’ bare winter trees are silhouetted from a certain angle. I enjoy this combination on a dark night.

For this collage, I used water soluble graphite & watercolor paint on a (very warped & old!) piece watercolor paper. Then I sketched & cut the trees from black paper, and added the purple “shadows”. The blue green version is a digital variation.

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Not My Words I

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

This has changed a bit in the final version. It is now darker and more complex with the addition of more watercolor and subtle collage elements. It is now time to stop, and to declare it finished!

The scan of the original is on the left. As you can see, it is fairly dark and subtle in color. But since I do enjoy drama as well as subtlety, I have created two digital variations. These are included to the right of the original 10″ x 10″ x 1″ collage on wrapped panel.

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Not My Words

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Above is a 10″ x 10″ block wrapped in a pre-printed paper. I have worked over this with ink. I like the earlier version best, so I will have to keep working to “fix” it to a better balance… so it goes!

Below is more of the same paper, worked with ink, and layered/collaged onto a wooden plaque. The original is in the center, with digital variations on either side

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