Leaning into Collage

I’m not sure what started it all because I have never really been a fan of collage per se, but within the art community on Instagram I have been exposed to some pretty wonderful collage over the last six months.

What I liked was the unpredictability of gestural marks created with a gelli plate. If you have never heard of these, they are a silicon plate which you can apply acrylic paint onto and move it around to suit. You can use stencils, texture tools and different papers.

I think the biggest inspiration has been Sally Hirst who teaches online courses and is a great artist with a natural intuition for arranging shapes and creating very successful compositions.

I deceide to give one of her courses a go, which can be undertaken at your own pace. It was a gift to myself as I felt ready to move into developing my work over the coming year and seeing what happens. I haven’t felt this creatively fuelled for a long time! I want to spend every hour I can in the studio and even if this method sticks or not ( see what I did there? ;) it is just good to try new things, don’t you think?