Stripes

One of my favourite way of making backgrounds for journal work is using stripes. The Edinburgh Art festival Guide this year is some fab yellow and blue stripes. The paper is matt and fab for doodling all over

I have so many pieces like this which are my go to relaxation doodling so I decided to rip them up to make backgrounds – I am having a chill out day and making right mess of my living roomlayering stripes in lots of different altered books that I am preparing

I wanted to do something bigger than normal so I used a double page spread in an A4 sketch book . I doodles all over the stripes but I didn’t like my design – I have been making split mandalas which work on as small scale , but the spiral ring down the middle disrupted my flow too much.

I was a bit disappointed because I had liked the blue and yellow grids. The fab thing about collage/ mixed media is that you can just keep adding layers until it works

I persevered adding a pale teal stripe – I wasn’t quite sure about this either but it was a bit different.

I decided to change up the scale of the foreground with a megaphone – I am feeling a bit sensitive at the moment – the Edinburgh Festival is on and it is very busy and noisey.

I mixed this up with a large spiral and some text

I felt it needed a bit more – balancing up with a title , a figure, and some sound marks. I wanted something that was a bit of fun , but represented me now in situ

I have been developing collage techniques over the summer. They have morphed into layers of strips of magazine pages/ words and images. I began working like this because I didn’t have any acrylic paint with me on holiday . I am enjoying the way the layers disrupt the surface and meaning of what you look at. I have been experimenting with adding texture with doodles, mono printing and book pages

Since returning from holiday – I have developed the technique further adding Strips at different angles and creating images that almost recreate my migraine aura – this last bit occoured accidentally
I have also tried working on a larger scale. I am pleased with the image below – it reminds me of my window onto the street – the Edwardian window frames – the railings and houses beyond all dissecting the view and the light – this is 2.5’x3.5′

I also tried an even bigger canvas 40″x50″ it’s funny this one was fine when it was lying flat – but I haven’t put the strips on straight and my varifocal lens seem to be playing tricks on me – I can’t look at the canvas with out getting irritated so I am storing it on its side. I have included some process photos below