Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

In my class, “Design Your Own Nature Quilt,” I show my students about making paper collages as a way to interpret a photo loosely.  I was introduced to this by Cherilyn Martin, and I’ve used it several times.  It’s a fun and easy project, and it there’s NO WAY to be overly exact with it.  Just what our brains need, at times.

As I prepared for a recent class, I decided to make another example of this process.  This was my inspiration photo, although  I decided to omit the trees on the left.

Great luminosity, don’t you think?

Click any image for a larger view

Here’s the assignment: Tear magazine pages/papers and glue them in place to interpret your photo at  a size of 8 1/2″ x 11″.  The combination of the small scale and the tearing mean you’ll only be able to capture the largest and most important shapes.   You’ll HAVE to work loosely!

Here’s my background.

Then, I added some bright orange foliage.  These established my composition, even though they had rather wonky shapes.

Finally, I added a few dark petals.  But not in a realistic color.  Instead, I made them dark purple.  And that’s enough, I think.

Voila!  I love the wonkiness.

I hope you’ll give it a try.  And if you do, I definitely want to see your results!  (Send me photos and I’ll show them here on my blog.)

Fun, right?

Ellen Lindner