Sunrise Ablaze

Sara's inspiration image for this month's Inspiration Collaboration was the most gorgeous and fire-y sunrise. I snuck on over to her blog post and found that she'd taken a photo of the sunrise from her kitchen window on 25 different mornings.  Each photo was exactly the same... and completely different at the same time. I noticed that one of those photos took this view a little lower and showed a small cottage in the trees. I did a little cut and paste to put those two images together.

Next I did a rough painting that would act as my guide through the collage process. Then I made designed papers that would eventually make up the sky. I had some brown designed papers left over from the previous project. And, I realized later that I would also need to make some with greens for the foreground. Finally it was time to snip... glue... study... snip... glue... rearrange... snip.. glue... turn... snip glue... look again... snip... glue... squint... snip... glue... snip... glue...

If you're wondering, yes... I did stress a lot over it looking like the house was on fire instead of the sun rising behind the house.  I made a few changes to push the fire further back.  In the end, I embraced the issue by giving the piece a fire-y title.

I committed to do three of these collages before I would let myself decide whether I loved the process or whether it was fun but not something I'd do again.  

Here are some things I decided, learned, and discovered:

• Using the Gelli plate to create the designed collage papers is very freeing and expressive.
• The process requires lots of stuff out and leaves the art studio a huge mess.
• I like having a plan for what I'm going to work on then creating a palette of the colors that will be a part of that piece rather than just randomly making papers. 
• I'm challenged to think through the value of each colored snip of paper needed to show form and shape.
• Mistakes can be glued over or painted over.
• The final product is just going to be kind of funky and wonky... and that's not a bad thing.
• Yes. I will do some collage again.
• No. I don't think it will become my main art love.  I'm not throwing out the oil paints and brushes.

Original Mixed Media Collage on 9"x 12" Canvas Board

[GIFT]