Text Collage Explorations with Mather for Seniors

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Text Collage Explorations with Mather for Seniors

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The prompt for my Mather Paper Explorations class was to use Text as the theme for your Collage. I frantically ripped papers...far faster than cutting. I had chosen a bunch of pages to use, almost the only thing I cut was the focal point boat "Blue Bayou" from keyboard tinted music sheet.

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 Starting with black cardstock paper...for a background...moody and a great base for collage. Again we were working so fast, I just have photos of the finished product. I love the time limit... which makes me flow with gut instincts instead of over-thinking everything.

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Here is the entire piece after completing. I tinted blued music with a tan alcohol, and also used some tan on white music sheet ripped for tree trunks and roots. 

Accents were added with blue metallic pens...and gold/copper pens. Also using bits and pieces of foliage from oodles of garden pages.

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A log cabin porch inserted as a houseboat in the bayou, with a dock. adding all the bits of leaves and folliage was fun and interesting. I would have loved more hanging moss, but used blurred photos of greens for that.

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I did color many of the torn edges with pens to let the foliages blend..and accented others for shadows. Water shows here and there.

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The left side of the page has some added streaks of light creeping through the trees.

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In another class we worked with printed TEXT torn into shapes and doodled on. Again, dark paper was suggested for the background. 

 I had an old craft magazine from the 60's that I tore the advertising pages out from....classifieds...this was craft shopping in the 60s-70s...no online businesses at all. Craft stores were few and far between except in larger cities.

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Some of the classifieds, had photos or accent stripes/frames or photos of products. Photos, which I used very few. I tore shapes mostly diagonally across the classified pages. Fitting the shapes on the black page, and gluind down, but leaving lots of black card-stock base showing as was suggested.

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Composition was basically to fill the paper. The marking and doodles were all done with alcohol markers on the text. The markers have varying strengths and opacities. I liked how the text still showed through and the ad dividers became part of the designs.

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I sort of like this alignment...giving this a landscape feel.

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Fun play exercise. I also used some colored pencils subtly on the black areas. Colored pencils didn't work very well on the vintage glossy classifieds,  but the markers were splendid in color and intensity.

Fun class with Mather Paper Explorations on Zoom.

More Mather free online classes for seniors can be found HERE

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Sandi 

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Mather Creative Mindfulness: Lake Shore Organic Shapes

Mather Creative Mindfulness:Lakeshore Organic Shapes.

I totally love my Monday late afternoon class with Casey. The Mather classes are geared towards seniors, but honestly how fun the prompts are and free spirited.

This week the guide was to just work with organic shapes. I had been thinking so much of the beach in my hometown on Lake Michigan. I'll be visiting later this week and I will definitely stop at the lakeshore and beach.

We were encouraged to begin with large free lines and then some organic shapes. 

For me the idea of water and sand, seaweed and critters in the lake. Lake Michigan is full of rocks, fossils, polished glass, bits, small shells and birds picking the shoreline

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From the outlines we were encouraged to make concentric lines following our main shapes. The example was in black and white and then red. Well, you know how I love color by now....so I think I used at least a dozen. 

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I think I like it this way.....Definitely a fun exercise. Sometimes scribbling is just a wonderful way to pass an hour or so. 

My lines are a bit shakey, but I love the layering of the colors of my alcohol markers from 5-Below...you can't beat the price. Every time I use them I discover a new combination of colors and marks.

Hope you enjoy my 'Lakeshore Organic Shapes'.

Thanks to Mather Free Online Classes for Seniors

 Information: HERE. 

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own unless identified, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi 

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Mather Mixed Media Project with Interesting results

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One of the reasons I take these Mather classes for seniors is to loosen up, experiment and work with new materials. After 45 years stuck in clay, I really wanted to spread my artistic wings and reawaken my childhood zeal over all art mediums. Mather offers everything from poetry, writing, crafts, exercise, educational classes free for seniors over 55.

Free online classes for seniors: Mather Classes

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Creative Mindfulness classes are based on mindfully centering yourself, then letting go, add a little art history which leads us to working with prompts based on a particular artist's art. 

This week, Ketki Fadnis was the selected artist. Ketki is a self-taught Pune, Indian artist who states, 

"Art is a healing process of body to mind and mind to soul".

How completely true. When I was going through my third knee replacement and had to wait so long...I soothed myself through watercolor painting.

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Ketki works in different medias, abstract as well as these amazing florals where she paints an entire canvas and then blocks out a background around a design, here she chose floral flower pots. I love the movement that crosses across her shapes. 

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We were given the choice of any type of different materials. Here I am working with my alcohol markers  on 12x12 cardstock. I really like how well the cardstock accepts any media with minimal stretching or peeling. 

Here we were encouraged to fill a page with shapes, lines swirls and doo-dads. This scribbling was very quick, maybe 3-5 minutes.

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I'm trying to empty this watercolor palette so I can clean and have a fresh start, so I was limited to what was left on the palette. Thinking I would use alcohol marker as the background in black..so I went bright in choosing my colors.

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You can see I was pretty random with the colors, but I like how the blue lines show lighter under the transparent/translucent water colors. We had to work very fast. 

Some people worked in pastels, oil pastels, crayons, charcoal, colored pencils (tedious),  or markers as well as watercolors. The recommendation was to do acrylics to do the back spaces.

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With a white (which didn't show up) then a black charcoal pencil I outlined my vases and then leaves. I originally thought of turning the paper around and cutting out my shapes an mounting them on another page, but I followed directions and used acrylic on top of the alcohol markers and watercolors. 

Since I used quick washes...the watercolors dried pretty fast. 

It took almost 3 coats of paint on the background to get it to this stage. I may enhance or add a table or line in black..as these are floating in space, which bothers me.

If I do this technique again, I'll wait long enough for it to be completely dry before doing the background. Bleeding was minimal but persistent, so that would be a good idea. Maybe working on three or four of these at a time would work giving you time to let everything dry. 

The Apple Barrel acrylic paint from a Mather kit (rate this as kid quality only) light blue acrylic was what I had on hand without trundling downstairs in search of some better paint...the class moves so fast. I would definitely use a better paint with better coverage and a more flat finish.

How About Give this Method a Try!

and HAVE FUN!

Even great for kids on a smaller scale, maybe turn the finished Scribble that's colored over into hand cut out shapes..houses, pots, plants cars and then mount them on colored paper.  Great dexterity project for all ages.

Thanks always for visiting, 

I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

Join me at these fine blog parties:

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi