I watched the Oscars last night and obviously I was more focused on the gowns than anything else. It is one guilty pleasure that I can easily write off as professional “visual research”! I actually can’t wait to get my hand on the images of some of those fantastic shiny gowns and cut them out for my work. After all as I have always said, I am my own kind of a fashionista and #thisishowiwearit. Â I am ending the #collagediet for the month of February with more glitter, metallics and golden fireworks as finale.
This is the last week of my daily #collagediet for the month of January. I started this whole collage art diet shenanigan with an intense cleanse in December by being on a three collages/day regiment. I have been sticking to it on a daily basis in January so that I won’t suffer too much from withdrawal. I am enjoying the dicipline a lot but I am also aching to go back to paint and big canvases. Speaking of that, I am quite nervous as I don’t know how to get back and where to start. I might have said that before and I might be repeating myself. This diet on paper and the simplified and minimalistic approach that I have adopted has affected me tremendously. It has been a really interesting process to focus on enhancing the qualities, textures and characteristics of one cut-out. I am not sure how this will translate onto canvas and how it would affect my style of painting. My work on canvas used to be very dynamic, energetic and at times a bit crazy. The collage work used to be intricate and dominant. That started changing in my latest paintings and became more controlled and calculated. I miss that impulsive, mischievous and  playful quality and the controlled chaos that I used to create. This, I guess is a more mature me! If you go to the filter page of the website by selecting different years you can see the transition and you can see what I am talking about.
I don’t know what will happen with paint but I know that at this very moment I am feeling extremely insecure about it. I also know what could help. A good old diving vacation and the underwater world could fix the problem. I wish I could pull that off in a travel grant application and say that to get my inspiration back I need to dive deep into the ocean. I wish there was an underwater artist residency somewhere out there. I am actually not kidding. I have been thinking about this idea for a long time.
I also need to get my act together and start showing my work again. I have not done any exhibitions in the past three years for some very obvious reasons that most of you know. It’s about time and I need to start working on that again.
I will update this page with the remaining pieces from my January daily challenge and in February I am moving to a diet of three collages on paper each week. I hope that’s ok with me!
I am feeling quite chatty today. It is the sunshine.
I did a lot of pink pieces for this week’s collage art diet. It was a good escape for the grey winter days. My favorite one here is the cabbage leaves on top of the pair of pants. It was an odd combination but it somehow works for me. The Japanese kimono piece was so silky and delicate that I almost didn’t want to touch it. It sat really well on paper. All I did was to stitch in place.  Another week is left from my daily diet and then I am switching to weekly. Check out my instagram for your daily dose of collage-a-day for the month of January.
Here is the recap of week 2 of the #collagediet. Another eclectic assortment – creature-like pieces with lots of filament- like drawings. Check out my instagram for your daily dose of collage-a-day for the month of January.
I think I told you last week that once I finished my December collage art diet challenge I had a sense of separation anxiety and experienced some kind of a withdrawal effect. It was a very intimate and intense process so it makes sense why I felt the way I did. During the challenge the hardest part was the rigid daily blogging and social media posts. I enjoyed writing about the process but there were many days that I didn’t have anything to say. Now the one thing I miss the most beside making three pieces a day is the process blogging. It forced me to shape my thoughts better and dig deeper into what I was doing. So I have been looking forward to writing this post and showing you what I have been working on.
Below are the daily collages I have been doing since January 1st. I know my #collagediet pledge to myself for 2016 is three collages per week. So far I have been doing them daily and I am hoping to keep it like that for the month of January. I realize that not working in three-per-day format opens me up for more experimentation as I don’t get dragged into creating sets or a sense of continuity. I also want to push myself harder with experimentation, new compositions, shapes and lines and maybe start introducing paint into these works on paper at some point. Baby steps! You will also see a lot of repeating concepts, patterns and similar drawings. Almost everything that happened in December were new and fresh to me and I haven’t explored them further so I am going to keep working on them until I feel I have reached a saturation point. I know minor changes and subtle ideas emerge during the saturation phase.  Just as a reminder, these are collage works on watercolour paper –  6″ x 6″  and 8″ x 8″. The cut-outs come from Vogue magazine, my one and only muse for now. They are pieces of clothing, objects, body parts that I distort into an abstract form maintaining a kinetic, life-like energy without referencing the body itself. The drawings are my responses to the exciting textures and lines in the cut-outs or whatever inspires me to build on them.
I am posting these as they come by on instagram daily so follow them there if you want a daily dose of #artoftheday. Â I will do a weekly recap here on my blog.
Today is the end of my 2015 collage diet challenge. I am finally here at Day 31 and 100 collages. This was the slowest, never-ending December I ever experienced and usually this month passes me by like lightning. It was an insane diet and oddly enough I am a bit sad that’s over. Obviously it has ended into a new year’s resolution of an ongoing collage diet on a different format which I will share it with you in the next post. I will have a final post on this diet, recapping the highlights and my most favorite pieces. Here are my New Year’s Eve special! It is quite a golden-carpet designer-studded event: wearing a gold sequin dress by DKNY, later on changing into a gold foil wool dress by Stella Mccartney accented by Sergio Rossi tech lace heels and Vhernier jewelry. My last pieces are my take on wish lanterns and fireworks with glitter and gold, closing this month and year with a bang! It’s has been a very special one. Thank you everyone for taking the time to look at them.
Day 30 of december 2015 collage diet challenge. Only one day left and I feel like I am dragging myself. The hardest part of the challenge has been this last week during the holidays trying to find the time and not to scramble. Another eclectic mix for here, a piece from a perfume bottle, Sorel shoe laces and sequin hat as preparation for NYE’s glitter and jazz !
You can also follow #collagedietchallenge15 on instagram.
Day 29 of december 2015 collage diet challenge. The first two pieces were taken from a super cool leather power dress (by Celine) for a feature on a young art force – Maria Baibakova- in Vogue! I think it is only appropriate for it to re-appear in an art work. The end of this challenge is around the corner. You can also follow #collagedietchallenge15 on instagram.
