Recently I started experimenting with collage. This offers plenty of exciting opportunities because there is so much in the way of beautiful papers out there for both scrapbooking and origami, not to mention stuff that I can recycle from magazines. I could most definitely paint those intricate patterns, but it is so much fun to do some handy cut and pasting the old fashioned way.
I’ve always been very drawn to Impressionism, and none epitomises that art style more than the great Claude Monet himself.
So when I purchased some origami paper from a local Japanese 2-dollar store, I thought it was a fortuitous time to have some fun with these lovely papers.
Everyone must have heard of and maybe seen reproductions of Monet’s famous water lily paintings. I decided to make an art piece based on this incredibly well known and familiar masterpiece. I’ve always thought lilies are very pretty flowers. I’ve never had the opportunity to examine one up close, but there are many ponds around where I live that have water lilies. I like the way they open up into this symmetrical rosette, and rise up above the water surface. They come in gentle pastel colours of white, yellow and purple. Not to mention that lotus roots are quite edible and delicious as well! In addition, many oriental goddesses are depicted resting tranquilly and comfortably in the centre of lotus blooms, surely that means there is something special about this flower?
Here’s another collage piece I did. This one has imaginary flowers. I had a wonderful couple of hours after the kids were asleep, cutting out shapes from fabric and paper, glueing them on, then sealing with medium, and hand drawing all the embellishments. There is something very meditative and calming about drawing repetitive shapes over and over again.
I would like to think that these pictures would brighten up any wall.
