Inspired Collage

Hand painted collage sheet

 One of my favorite teachers in the art community is Mystele. She has a wonderful Ning group called Community Thrive. This last month the very talented Roben-Marie Smith (LOVE) was a featured artist and provided us with tons of inspiration. Each month Myste's community hosts different art challenges. Of course I had to join in on this one because I don't have anything else to do. Total sarcasm right there. Lol. I am so glad I did though. It was super fun, and I really like how my painting turned out.

In her video, Roben-Marie encouraged us to use our own artwork as collage pieces for our pages. I love that idea! Right? The only problem - I can scan my work into my computer...but, my printer is not very good. So getting a nice copy of one of my paintings wasn't going to work. I know that I could have it printed somewhere else, but who wants to spend extra money. My solution - beg my hubby for new printer grab a couple of the 500 notebook sheets of paper thrown across my bedroom floor and paint some collage sheets. (Yes, thank you my sweet 3 and half year old who found joy ripping a notebook apart and redecorating my room. Don't leave them alone for a minute I tell yah!)

The notebook paper worked out really well. I chose a color palette and started painting. It is no surprise that flowers popped up.  They are showing up everywhere! I am definitely going to continue painting more sheets to then cut up and use in other pieces. I mean, I still have 498 sheets left from my little paper monster. ;)

 
I added pen, water soluble crayons, used stencils, and doodled with some Faber Castell artist pens. Once this page dried I started cutting it up to use on my journal spread. OK, now don't be too shocked again. What do you think I ended up painting in my journal?? You guessed it - flowers.  I think it is pretty funny that I painted flowers to then cut them up and make more flowers. I get obsessed. :)

This technique is really fun and it is a great way to get more out of your artwork especially if you can print something that you have already created. If you haven't tried it - you should!! Now I am off to work on...well, probably more flowers. :)

Yes it is!