TUTORIAL TRY OUTS - WITH KRISTIN DUDISH

DISASTER ZONE COMING UP

I'll warn you at the start that you are entering a disaster zone as far as art is concerned - my very own disasters .... no-one else is responsible!   

I decided to link up with Kristin Dudish's invitation to join with her at her new Tutorial Try Outs.  The tutorial she chose to follow first is the free 'Paint Over Collage' offered by Tam at www.Willowing.org.

Now I often make collages, but I have never managed to master this particular style, so I was out of my comfort zone straight away - in fact it was so far away it was almost out of sight.

I didn't want to follow Tam's sample image completely, but felt I did need to follow the basic idea of an angel. Now although I admire other people's angel work, angels are just not something I do, but it's not much use following a generously free tutorial and doing something different.  So I filled the page with collage, and those two bullet-shaped bits at the right are the promise of wings to come.

Disaster No. 1.  I was appalled the next morning when I saw that I had stuck the head almost halfway down the page - I was certain I had put it 3 or 4 inches higher.  (It slipped in the night).

Emergency action taken to crop the page to an almost square format.  The image for the face should have come from a magazine, but I couldn't find one that grabbed me so I turned to my beloved, battered 1930s book 'Wonder Album of Film Land', which I was given second-hand when I was twelve, 65 years ago.  This photo of Joan Crawford jumped out at me.

If you have never heard of Joan Crawford then it's worth looking her up on Wikipedia, and also the memoir of her adopted daughter "Mommy Dearest", which catalogues a much darker side to Joan's character than the Publicity machine presented.

The next step was to start painting and transforming the collage into what should have been a pleasant image.  But Joan kept refusing to accept nice white angelic wings.  Given what is said about her real character that's quite appropriate, and my work immediately took on a darker feeling.  Disaster No 2 started immediately as the image moved further and further from Tam's lovely original.

Here's my 'Dark Angel'.  I was kind and gave her blue wings rather than the black wings she kept demanding.  She wasn't all bad.

Disaster No. 3 was when it came to adding lots of text to the image.  This is another thing that is not part of my basic comfort zone, and not something I do.  I could only manage it by using the original image of Joan as the topic for the text.  I should have added other small images in the spaces, but over three days I had spent many hours struggling with this, so I decided its time was up.

What did I gain from the experience?

• At the end I was pleased that I struggled my way through it.
• I had tried out new techniques that I will use in future.
• I know the tutorial and my struggle with it will rub off on my approach to art in a good way.
• And even though I don't like my image much, I have been brave enough to show it to you.

Thank you Kristin, and thank you Tam.