Just For Fun!

'Hot Pear' - torn paper collage

For those of you who followed the color discussions / exercises from a few posts back (starting with Value of Texture), here is a fun project that goes just a little further! Inspired by the amazing collage work by Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson, this Still Life Collage project is one I do with 3rd through 6th graders after having them go through all of the color study work that you have done.

All of the elements we've discussed so far come into play:

• Value and Texture - to show depth and movement
• Color Transitions - to gently move the eye from one color to another
• Saturation - elements of similar saturation stand out against backgrounds of different saturation

All you need to know on how to do these has been covered in the 3 posts referenced above. But if you have questions, please let me know!

Here are a few pieces I made - each in under an hour (that's how long my classroom time is). I don't claim to be a collage artist and many of you will do oh-so-much-more with this - but boy it's a blast! And that's what it is all about, isn't it?

Here is a variation on the pear theme. This time the background is low value and more saturated. The pear is high value and low saturation.

'White Pear' - torn paper collage

This scene was inspired by a logo on the magazine I tore up to make the collage!:

'Little House in the Hills' - torn paper collage

A few years ago I planted a symphony of sunflowers in my garden - red, orange, chocolate, yellow with red centers... with the idea that I would fill my house with huge, colorful bouquets all summer and fall. Unfortunately, I'm allergic to pollen and do you know how much pollen sunflowers contain? Aaaarrgh! I can't breathe within 15 minutes of walking into a house with them. So much for that. But I still love these gorgeous flowers and enjoy them in my garden.

'Sunflower' - torn paper collage

Apples and pears are such fabulous subjects for beginning artists learning about value - I have my little students (the grade schoolers) draw them with charcoal, reverse charcoal, paint them in acrylics and even use them in collage. I really dig them!

'Red Apple' - torn paper collage

'Tulips' - torn paper collage

All of the above are pretty simple shapes, but you could go even simpler and just try a sphere! This one started out on it's side but seemed to be eerily floating in air. So I tipped it over and added a lamp post - see it doesn't have to be a gorgeous work of art! It's just for fun!

'Mardi Gras Lamp' - torn paper collage

And here is one my 11 year old son did...

'Tree on the Hill' - Morgan Gilbert

Color Transitions

This is part 2 of my color discussions/exercises. Come dive into color with me!

Monochromatic color schemes come alive by including different values, from bright highlights to dark shadows. There is movement in this green mosaic because green flows from yellow-green to deep green to even a bit of blue-green where the sky is reflected in the laurel leaves. Monochromatic doesn't have to mean a solid, single shade of a color (how boring!) - so much more exciting to expand it!

How many of you tried the monochromatic collage exercise from the last post? Lisa found herself questioning whether her 'reds' were 'red' enough and I say anything with a bit of reddish tinge to it is fair game! So, yes to pink and red-orange and violet-red and burgundy! I hope you made a few and tried lots of different colors. Ready to add another color?

This next exercise will help you move from one color to another by taking advantage of the variations within each monochromatic collage. To give you an idea of where we are going to go with this, I put together this mosaic to show how red and green (complementary colors!) can work well together. An effective tool to pull your eye from one color to another is to use transition pieces.

There are many different types of transitions (much more of this at a later date) but the most common type of transition from one color to another is to find pieces that include bits of each color. Note that almost all of the photographs contain both green and red (in some shade) and so your eye naturally flows from red to green.

On to the next exercise (make sure you do Exercise 1 first!):

Color Transitions - Exercise 2

Materials:

• old magazines that you can tear up
• glue stick
• sheet of paper (cardstock preferably) cut into a square
  

Directions:

• Choose 2 colors - easiest if they are of similar saturation (purity, intensity)
• Tear out pieces of each color from the magazine
• Glue 'blob' of one color into one corner and 'blob' of second color into opposite corner as shown above

Now comes the fun part:

• The challenge is to flow between the 2 original colors
  
• Flip through your magazines to try to find pieces that contain both colors OR introduce an additional color between the 2 originals such that you can find transition pieces between each set of colors.
  
• Try 'leaning' the colors of your original piles towards the next color

For instance, in the example above, I found some calla lilies that moved gradually from a muddied green (green that has a bit of it's complementary color - red - in it) to orange. I also found lots of pieces that moved from green to yellow and yellow to orange. Moving from red to orange was easy - there were some orange-red bits in my original pile of red.

Try moving through a completely different color on the other side. In this case I found a fabulous green to pink petal with a green bug (lace wing?) so I went with hot pink! The deep rich pink flowed beautifully back into reds which leaned to the cool (red with a touch of blue in it) on that side.

The center can be a bit tricky and it is okay to leave it open. However, in this case I found a handblown glass vase in yellow-green with an orange flower on top and it worked as a centerpiece.

These colors can be echoed in any medium. I bought some fun fabrics in all of the colors of my collage and even found transition pieces that tied 2 colors together.

This Analogous bead soup flows from pink through red into orange (so yes, Lisa you can use them together!).



Trying out color schemes with old magazines and glue is a cheap, easy, fun and forgiving way to play with color. Use the colors you pulled together in your collage for some fun new projects!