Project: Process

I've been working on this collage for most of the winter, so it makes sense that I finally finished it on a snowy spring day. I knew I wanted something blue, but the meditative/openness aspects came much later, when I sensed a trend in what I was cutting out of magazines. It's pretty cool how these patterns appear over time, and even cooler when I step back far enough to notice them.

This didn't turn out exactly like my final pre-Mod Podge layout (last one below), but such is the collage process. Things shift as you go along, and once you start gluing, there's no stopping until that final scrap of paper. I'd say it's complete, but I think people never truly complete creative projects, they just stop working on them when the time is (feels) right.

Stage One: Throw It All On The Canvas

Stage Two: Give It A Shape

Stage Three: Commit To a Layout

As you can see, I'm in my blue period now, but a while back I was feeling the red:

The quote reads: "In a serener Bright/In a more golden light/I see/Each little doubt and fear,/Each little discord here/Removed." -Emily Dickinson

Don't mind the Christmas lights I still decorate with.

I like working with specific colors. Usually, no matter the layout, the composition looks good/neat. Besides color, I also like themes. For me, collages are therapeutic. They are just mindless enough so as to not overwhelm or stress me out, but not so mindless that I get bored and lose interest. I also like the idea of organized chaos.

Who are we kidding: at the end of the day, I just like reliving my childhood by cutting and pasting.