Using Molding Paste in Collage Art
I have had the idea for this painting for a long time: to mimic fabrics including their surface structures. I wanted to combine watercolors and decorated papers with the structures I also had a deeper theme: being open for combinations. Fabrics in a quilter’s stash have no hierarchy between each other. Similarly, we can accept different sides of ourselves and our lives and make them work together.
Creative Process with Molding Paste
I began the artwork by painting a watercolor paper yellow. I love my White Nights watercolor set, its colors have such a great intensity! After the watercolor background, I added splotches of molding paste and made it look like corduroy by drawing straight lines. My paste is a Danish product, Schjerning Smooth Structure Paste, but if you are going to purchase some, I would recommend Golden Molding Paste.
The great thing about molding/structure paste is that, after it dries, you can watercolor on it.
You can also paste extra layers.
It is difficult to doodle on the layers but if you leave some areas free of paste, you can doodle there. The combination of the structured surface and doodled areas create great contrast.
You can also add decorated papers and achieve a more detailed look that way. I tore most of my papers by hand so that their soft edges remind from the softness of fabrics.
I do not usually look my paintings from the distance before they are almost finished. I feel it is unnecessary to try to balance an unfinished work. The last little details are added based on what I want to emphasize. In this work, I wanted to create a composition of several equal areas. The final step was to add the little turquoise pieces in the lower part of the work. Working as a contrast color, that made the weight of the orange equal to the other bigger areas.
Have you ever used surface structures in your art or craft? How? Which do you enjoy more: structure or color?
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Bad Art – How to Fix Mistakes?
Have you ever created something you absolutely hate? Did you make a page in your art journal that makes you want to tear off the page? Did you create a card that you don’t want to keep neither give? I do that almost daily, with the exception that I don’t call that artwork finished. Making mistakes is the essential part of the creative process. Without destruction there won’t be creation!
I will show the process of the collage card that I made for my sister. You will see how I almost destroyed it with very bad decisions. You will also see that without those stupid mistakes the card would not look detailed enough in the end.
Yes, speaking of finishing, every art teacher that I have met always say the same thing: “Your art is finished when you feel so. If you can’t think of anything more to add, it’s finished.” I don’t think so. If you want to develop in making art, you will not stop when your brain says so. It is your rational side that is speaking and you need to get in touch with your creativity.
Let’s see how I began creating the collage and dive deeper in the process of making mistakes and letting creativity take over.
Here’s the fist step. I just grabbed a paper and had some fun doodling. I felt pretty light and cheerful at this stage.
Then I took out the watercolors and realized that the paper that I had picked is perfect for them. It was handmade recycled paper that I had bought from a handcrafter a year or two ago. The paper is made from old linen sheets and I love the way it absorbs water.
To create something a bit luxorious I opened a jar of Golden Mica Flakes. It is actually grey paste which looks stunning gold after drying.
After adding some details with watercolors and extra doodling, you could be fooled to think I was finished. But knowing better, I moved forward and got a crazy idea to cut the piece.
Oh my. At this point I knew I had made the first move towards distroying my pretty little ornament. Next move to the same direction: sewing machine!
I got an obcessive idea to use machine sewing for the details. And after trying to fix everything with some more watercolors, I knew I had done it: it was ruined!
I could have stopped here and call it bad art. But while making a lot of bad decisions and messing up the good start, I had found the speed and the mindset of creative thinking. This is why you should never stop after making mistakes: you have then just opened the door to your imagination! And if you made no mistakes, you did not even enter the front yard!
Now, at this point of the process, you should not quit neither continue with the rational mind. Do not take any black or white paint and paint it all over! That is conscious destruction and far from what your creativity can accomplish.
You should just keep on working with high speed and continue adding new details. Even if it feels stupid, even if your mind is blank, just keep on adding. If you feel like you need any direction, then turn on some music or take a picture or a photo that you like and put it near to your work area. But do not look the picture intentionally. Just trust on your wild side!
To save my ruined piece, I used this lovely card that I had bought a year ago while visiting St Petersburg, Russia. I set it so that it was a bit higher than the table top. That way it did not catch too much attention while I was working.
See how the russian roses began to appear to my work! I did not think of the roses or the rest of the russian card while I was trying to save the collage. I worked fast and intuitively without questioning anything.
How did I knew when it was finished? When the things I kept on adding became smaller and smaller, finally so small they were almost invisible.
So, my advice is that if you made something pretty, destroy it with your mistakes! And when you made a punch of them, begin enjoying your creativity and finish your work!
I try to be prepared for the “bad art” part so that I begin lightly. Starting with skecthing and watercolors makes it possible to add plenty of layers afterwards.
I would love to hear what your thoughts and experiences are on this method. Leave a comment!
Fun Designs from Decorative Papers
Were you ready for the color bomb? I just could not resist creating this design with the vibrancy that is almost inappropriate. Hopefully, you are like me and need to get your overdose of colors and patterns now and then!
Collage Elements
I have created this surface pattern from handmade collage elements. I often mention how I create single decorative elements which I use in collage art or art journaling later. This time, I made a pattern that is based on those odd elements. These elements are like mini collages. They were made by cutting handmade decorated papers and adding some doodling with markers.
The elements might look complicated but are super simple to make:
1) Combine few paper pieces.
2) Add details with markers.
3) Cut the combined piece in half.
4) Repeat the previous steps changing some of the pieces as you go.
Cutting and combining the cut pieces repetitively is fun, and the result is like a mini quilt. Especially if you add seams with markers like I have done.
Surface Pattern
When creating a surface pattern, you also need something in the background unless you will put the elements tightly together. I wanted to add the background to make the design more interesting. The plain black background was something that I considered first. But it looked too separate from the pieces.
Luckily I save all kinds of doodles, even the ugly ones. I found a file called “blue mess,” a scanned image of the paper which I made a long time ago.
At the time I had thought this doodle was horrible, but now it would be just fine!
I processed my scanned images at Photoshop image processing software. At Photoshop I created a solid colored background, added the blue mess as the second layer and changed its color. Then I removed the white background from each of the four decorative elements and added a stroke to each element.
The repeat was created so that one decorative element is in the middle, two at sides and the fourth one at the corners. It takes some accuracy to place the elements so that they match when the design is repeated. It would have been easier to have each element separate, but I wanted to create a sort of appliqued look.
If you do not make a commercial pattern, you can just create an artwork manually instead of composing a repeatable pattern on the computer.
Here’s the design again, with more muted colors. This design reminds me of an old quilt, colors faded a bit unevenly but still suitable to be the centerpiece of any room.
I call this pattern Kira.
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Finished Art Journal
In 2012 I bought a pink Smash book. Two years later, it’s now finished. With this video, I want to encourage you to continue art journaling. Whatever a single page looks like, it will be pretty and meaningful when being part of the full book.
Finished Art Journal – A Thick Book!
I love handling full books, the thick, filled pages just temp to open them again and again! Smash books have a lot of pages and I had to remove several of them when my book grew thicker page by page.
See the blog posts written during the years about this finished art journal:
Pretty Art Journaling
the first pages and introducing the concept of the journal
There’s a Little Girl in All of Us
drawing faces
Smash Book or Handmade Journal
using Smash book as an art journal
Homemade Happiness
creating more pages
Art Journaling about Imagination
a spread celebrating imagination
Would You Try That
playing jewellery designer
You may also recognize some artwork on the video that has been shown in this blog. I often use art journals to save them.
Here’s the back cover again which I finished on the video. I create decorated elements (like the centerpiece of the flower) now and then. They are stored with hand decorated papers and when I create collages they often work as jump starts. It always looks better if all the elements are not made in the same day! The same is with the journal itself – keep on decorating, day by day, one piece at the time!
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