Going Around the Edges
Forest Dance (detail)
I’ve always felt comfortable with collage. There is no pressure to get anything perfect and great satisfaction in tearing up pieces of paper to create a new composition. My mantra was always tear not cut.
This week however, I tried something different. Taking inspiration from the silhouette collages of Mark Hearld, I tried drawing a stylised shape of a tree and some branches on the back on one of the paste papers I recently made. Then I brought out the scissors and started cutting.
It felt decidedly weird cutting out shapes to create a silhouette form. It was all about sharp edges with no torn jagged bits to break the lines. The tree shapes felt naked and stark, although I loved the paste paper ‘textures’ of the bark. I tried them out at first on a sheet of handmade kozo paper, but realised the two types of hard edge/soft edge weren’t ‘singing’ harmoniously.
I put the work aside until the next day as I needed green paste papers for the background. I was drawing inspiration from my photos taken in Takayna, Tasmania from inside the green cathedral of old growth forest. The light was dappled, the sun creating a pathway luring you further into the forest depths.
I brought out yellow and green paint and added the corn starch to them, using a palette knife to spread the colours. When dry the green was perfect to tear into two halves for the forest background. I laid the tree silhouettes on top and could see the piece taking shape.
It was a slow process. For someone who is used to ‘knocking out’ collages every day, this steady building up of layers over several days was quite a test of faith and endurance. I had to keep coming back to it each morning with fresh eyes to see what it needed next.
The foreground of tree leaves needed special attention. I tried cutting out leaf shapes. Apart from this being incredibly fiddly, it was too structured for my liking. I returned to inking up some torn pieces of soft kozo paper and glued the pulled apart fibres around the tree branches. It worked!
I realised that I am becoming confident with these new techniques I have been trialling for the past months, using kozo fibres for collage and adding them to compositions. It feels like I have broken through into the mixed media category, finding a way to paint without picking up a paintbrush!
It’s like going around the edges of a problem, circling ever closer to its core. No conflict, instead a gentle erosion of my self doubts about my ability to paint. Using different ways to apply colour has allowed me to banish the thought that I’m not a painter. I’m working up the courage to try out a bigger collage and mixed media composition of forest scenes. Who knows where it will lead.
Cut out paste papers trees on kozo paper
Arranging the layers of collage papers
