Last week, I introduced you to the Cooking with Tina Art Collab. If you missed the post, you can find it here.
As the week wore on, I found myself mildly interested in the next ingredient. I say mildly interested because at this point because I was still pretty exhausted and caught up in the mental tedium of the day-to-day. The creative spark was still sputtering. Still, I did wonder what Tina would choose for ingredient two? Would I like it or hate it? When it comes to creating art, I need rules but they need to be rules I can stretch. If the challenge becomes too rigid or demanding, then I find it exhausting. I don’t think I would ever be cut out for commission work. I was beginning to regret my decision to apply the acrylic paint in such a formal way. However, the rules of the challenge stated no do-overs and from experience, I knew that a little bit of paint can change the way a piece looks. At this point, I was hoping for a bunch of prompts that would turn this piece around.
Cooking with Tina ingredient two involved collage materials. This would be easy. During 2019, I had joined quite a few art support groups, one of which was for collage enthusiasts. I hadn’t done much with any of the prompts from the group. Mostly, I just lurked and looked at all the fabulous pieces people were creating. I guess it was enough to feed my soul at a time when I was too tired to make anything. I had started to gather some materials though. I have a nice little pile of fashion magazines that I had begun to gather at the start of the pandemic. Back when I had visions of creative productivity with all of the time I was about to have. Some people bought a ton of toilet paper. I bought a ton of embroidery floss, magazines, glue, and paint. Anyway, for whatever reason, I enjoy punching circles out of these magazines. There is something about fitting a pattern or grouping of colors into the circle and collecting it. I now have a nice case of collage materials. It is a really big case with little boxes inside designed to store photos but instead is now storing punched circles that have been sorted by color. I guess it was time to actually use some.
Here is yet another late-night meeting with my art supplies. Sorry again for the bad photo. I was still too tired to be bothered with lighting and staging. Luckily for me, completing the prompts for each ingredient didn’t take much time at this point.
For ingredient two, I chose to layer some circles onto the page. I opted to cut a few in half and layer some torn bits across. Once again, the choice in how I completed this step was very conservative. The circles are placed on two sides of the page to create a diagonal flow. I was hoping they would break up the strong structured feel of the large diamond. I was nervous about choosing large collage pieces. Large pieces represented a big commitment that could drive the theme of the page. I had no clue at this point what the theme of the page would be and I didn’t want to head myself down a path that could back me into a creative corner. I limited my color choice by choosing circles I felt complimented the acrylic paint colors. I felt that limiting the color palette might keep this thing from heading off into hot-mess territory. At this point, the piece looks pretty ugly. We will see where it heads with the next ingredient.
Ingredient three with be posted next week. You are welcome to play along too! I have to say it… If these troubled times have made you too tired to create, then this is the challenge for you! Feel free to post a photo of what you have made in the comments.
If you would like to see what Tina did with the prompt, check her piece out here.