Class Collage Results (and some other classroom work)

We had a small group yesterday, probably due to the Labor Day weekend, but it's always fun to have a intimate group. We began with the scale paintings done in our last class. It seems to have been a mixed review. I think any lesson that teaches us something is a good one, but it gets frustrating if the resulting image isn't pleasing. Still, most of the students found it helpful and freeing to do the small-scale painting inside the bigger one, because once they got to the larger part the scale was already determined. We also observed that it gave a wonderful sense of distance and focus to the paintings. (See Kris Gorman's work in progress at the bottom.)

Moving on to the collage, we cropped the 8-part photo to 6 parts (since I finally figured out how to accommodate a fluctuating number of students), and divvied up the collage photographs by shuffling them and randomly handing them out. Each of us used paper the same size, but we did little else that was the same. One used home made black paper, one used Richeson-Unison black, some used reclaimed Wallis, and I used peach colored Pastelmat. Here's the photo, divided and numbered:

It's a photo from WetCanvas, which I changed into grayscale. I printed each one so that it was about  5x7" in size. That way we could measure the geography more easily. I also let them know it was a garden so they could be free with the color. They really went to town! Here's how it came out:

Class Collage: garden

It's so much fun seeing the different interpretations, yet there's a unity to it that is quite pleasing. We put all our finished paintings on the table and found the arrangement that made sense without looking at the photo, and originally the top right and top left paintings were reversed. It actually worked that way, too--maybe even a bit better in a visual sense!

Here's another picture showing the original color photo, which I let everyone see at the end:

Grayscale, color photo, collaged images.

I think we all had a fun and relaxing day. We also painted (and talked) for about an hour. Here are some of the projects the students are working on in class.

 Barb Clark

Kris Gorman

Patti Gladstone

And just for fun, here are a couple of the palettes people use in class.

Barb's palette

Gina's palette

Keep going, gang,

Deborah