Feel Connected

Hi Friends!
Let's welcome September with this extraordinary collage piece by Gayle who never fails to amaze us with her beautiful sensitivity expressed through papers and paints.

It's a very simple tutorial today, yet it's filled with ideas how to get brilliant results - Gayle beautifully opens whole worlds to many creative possibilities.
I'm sure this art piece will touch your very heart and soul...

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Hello lovely Finnabair friends.

As I’m sure you already know, I love to collage. This is a collage done on a piece of Strathmore 300g/m (heavy) mixed media paper and has held up really well to an abundance of wet mediums being used on it.

The piece was not “planned out” but as I continued to work on it, with many of the original paper pieces being lost under layers of paint, new layers appearing, edges of first layers still showing through and various symbolic images dominating, I became very aware of how easy it is to lose connections… with friends, with feelings, with your faith, with family, with values, with nature and even with yourself. How cracks can start to appear and before long the rift is so great, the connection is lost...

No.1 I started with a piece of heavy mixed media paper onto which I very randomly stuck done torn pieces of favourite paper using Art Basics Soft Matte Gel. I knew I would be using paint over the top of this paper so added a coat of Clear Gesso.

No.2 Sketched in the face.

No. 3 and 4 Using Art Basics Heavy White Gesso and black, white and red Art Alchemy Impasto Paints, I started to paint in some details, such as the lips and nose as well as painting “out” or over some of the background or highlighting some of the background.

No.5 Using the Impasto paints to highlight the coloured details.

No.6 Using Heavy White Gesso and Snow White Impasto paint to block out or paint over the areas behind the face.

No.7 Adding colour and hand drawn and painted details for more interest.

No.8 Using Finnabair stamps on tissue paper and then collaging them on to add small areas of interest and detail.

No.9 Using one of Finnabair Stencils and Pitch Black Impasto paint to add background detail.

No.10 Another Finnabair Stencil ('Netting'), this time used with Art Basics Modeling Paste to add texture to the background.

No.11 Acrylic paint applied thickly at the top of the page, misted with water and allowed to run down the page.

No.12 To add a little more texture and some “richness” to the background, I used the beautiful 'Unicorn's Hair' Sparks Acrylic Paint, applied thickly again and misted with water and left to run.

Detail of collaged layers:

Collaged layers with hand drawn and painted details:

Collaged stamp details and textured background:

Using random pieces of patterned paper, randomly glued down to your page, may seem to some of you a very disorganised way to start a creative project.

But for me, it’s more about the process rather than the end result; and you never know where those random pieces of paper will take you...

Throw them up in the air, let them fall where they will, add some of your favourite mediums to the mix, let intuition guide you and soon, I’m sure, you will have the basis of a story unfolding in beautiful layers of colour, and texture, and pattern and image.

Love, Gayle

Products used: