MIND GAMES!
There’s a strange thing that happens when you start to create something. And that’s not just art! The Mind Games can start! Is this a good idea? Will it work? What will people think etc? We’ve spoken about it before. Imposter Syndrome can kick in and all those questions, fears and doubts can take over. And, in some cases stop you from even starting that thing you had in your mind! I’m here to tell you, once again, to ignore those fears and do it anyway! Take action and create!
If you've read my previous blog, ‘THINKING vs DOING’, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you haven't read it, why not haha? It’s all very well talking a good game about creating! It’s a whole different ball game actually doing it! Especially when it’s not in your ‘normal’ medium. Those doubts and fears are amplified massively. But, that’s exactly what I’ve done.
I took action and focused on the act of creating and not the mind games that come with it. I took my own advice, simplified the ideas, and picked one I knew I could work on every day to get me back into the habit of creating. And, this time it was out of my comfort zone completely. Collage!
THE PROJECT.
I won’t bore you too much with the details. I’m very aware I babble on too much about these projects sometimes. But, the basic premise of the project was to make at least one collage a day. The only rules I set myself were that I had an hour each day to create and that the source of material for the collages would come from Vogue Magazines.
As you may have seen in a previous project, NAKED IS ALWAYS IN FASHION, I have lots of copies of Vogue that I’ve built up over the years. Most of the time they sit gathering dust on shelves in my studio so I decided I would be better off refashioning some of them into collages.
Here are the results. As you can see I ended up getting into a bit of a flow some days and creating more than one. I actually found it a very therapeutic and calming process. Although you do have to concentrate using those scalpels haha they’re bloody sharp!
So, which ones are your favorites?
So what do you think? Do any of them stand out to you more than others? For me, there are 5 or 6 in there that I think are a bit shit! And, I’m good with that! It was inevitable that some of them would be. But in general, I’m pretty pleased with how they’ve turned out. I’ve learned a lot more about the visuals that I’m drawn to. The most obvious to me was the use of text and words as key elements in the images. This is something I want to explore much more moving forward, not only in more collage work but in other mediums as well.
I’m going to scan some of my favourite pieces from this project and clean them up a little. Once they’re digitized I’m going to get them printed and might have to consider doing some sort of giveaway to all you loyal readers who are signed up for the newsletter.
THAT’S ENOUGH!
Anyway! That’s enough talking! Time to move on to my next project. I’d love to know what you think of some of these collage pieces so feel free to get in touch to let me know.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read the blog and check out the work. I appreciate you and your support. It means a lot! If you haven’t already, then sign up for the newsletter below and you never know, you might be in with a chance to win one, or a set of some of these prints, in the future.
Until next time…