A Broken Promise

Collection of papers including some from sample packs of Khadi papers

Not long ago, I made a promise to myself that I would quit being lured into spending a lot of time on free classes All those hours watching Sketchbook Revival videos over several years were the prime culprit - mostly enjoyable but not always useful to me personally, yet I felt obligated to watch them all. And then there have been the Laly Mille freebees, just couldn't stay away because collage and art journalling are things I'd like to master better. Most recently I think was the "year of light" taster on FB - not unlike the Sketchbook Revival series but an absolute slew of artists, but this time I was more prudent about which videos I watched and did not actually do any of the lessons, just took notes and printed off info. That's it, I thought, no more falling into the trap of signing up for classes just because they were free. However, in a weak moment in December, I followed a recommendation that came via e-mail to sign up for Catherine Rains Collage Breakthrough FREE multi-session class running for a couple of weeks in January. The thought was I could always opt out if I got into January and felt too short on time or stressed to do it, but it did sound like a good opportunity to learn more about collage which I still struggles with. 

I print out instructions to add to sketchbook

This is not exactly quilt-related as my previous post might have implied I'd be realigning to, but perhaps quilt-adjacent. After watching the welcome video, I could see Kat was presenting a different more structured approach, incorporating design principles a step at a time and in small formats with the emphasis of ending up with individual collages that were also cohesive with each other. Pick two colors from a cool palette or two colors from a warm palette to work with on all collages throughout the series. Separate your piles of papers into patterned and quiet papers, then each one of those stacks into light medium dark values. Just that exercise alone was instructional. Then start small with 2 inch penciled in squares to fill with just two pieces of chosen paper - one "quiet", one patterned - of different values, using a glue stick.

auditioning placements, temporarily taped in place

I'm working in a Mixed Media Sketchbook a made back in July of 2023. That's one of the problems with being in the book club - so many of those projects produce blank books that sit on the shelf waiting for a purpose. So it is pretty delightful to finally put it to use. It's designed with spacers between the signatures to allow it to expand as layers of collage are added to the pages. As the squares increase in size to 3 inches, I had to work over the center of the signature but it wasn't too bad. And now we are picking three papers that go together, one dark, one medium, one light, either two quiets and one patterned or two patterned and one quiet. All the while, you consider how each trio works with what's in the squares beside and above/below, and trying not to put the same orientation of the pieces as are in adjacent squares. Kat suggested maybe wait to glue down pieces in a square until all squares are composed in order to give the option of changing your mind as you go. These little pieces do scatter quite easily so I found it very helpful to use removable scotch tape to hold them together and to the spot they may reside in.

Compare to in-progress pic to note changes I made

Although Kat kept correcting herself whenever she said "rules" rather than "suggestions" or "recommendations" (heaven forbid anyone feel constrained . . .), I'm a strong proponent of learning rules first, and I am grateful for these simple ones she put forth that provide some structure. I so often let all that fabric I get out to work with overwhelm me and I do not always make the best choices when putting together a quilt be it traditional or art. I think I can use what I've learned here to make better fabric choices. I also like filling the squares in a sketchbook. With fresh eyes the next day, I could study what I'd done and what perhaps didn't work so well, While choosing pairings, I noticed how easy it would be to go monochromatic even though I had two colors (blue and green) in my piles - had to keep reminding myself to grab some green now and then which I could see made the grid groupings more interesting. When I moved on to choosing three papers, I sometimes caught myself choosing all patterns or a value too similar to another as I gravitated towards ones I really liked. Making a switch did make for a better coupling, one where I could instantly say, Yes, I really love that - which Kat encouraged, that intuitive instinctive knowledge over too much brain thinking.

Two more sessions to go as we move up to four inch squares and make a final single collage at five inches as we continue to work with the papers originally chosen and learning how to use even the smallest scraps that we've been encouraged to save. This has been fun and educational and can be done with fabric scraps as well which I would like to try. But just like when I'm surrounded by fabrics and cutoff pieces when constructing a quilt, my table is a mess of piles of paper that I will be glad to clear away soon, making room for a "real" project.