IT'S ALL IN THE PREPARATION

GERTRUDE STEIN - DEMO PAINTING MIXED MEDIA

I have been working most of the week on this image.  It is my example for the one day workshop at the end of the month in celebration of Gertrude Stein and her famous haircut.  We will be working with collage.  Since I have such a short period of time, I thought I would stick to one idea.  I call this technique paper quilting.  In fact, I incorporated some fabric in this one, along with hand made papers and some printed tissue paper.  Below is the sequence I followed.

This is the original image I found on the internet.   Next, I simplified the shapes in with the application iColorama.

Using this value pattern, I broke the face into simplified shapes, printed that image out on an a sheet of  paper, took it to the copy shop and enlarged it the size I wanted to work with.

I made a master tracing and  a second tracing where I numbered each shape and then proceeded to cut each shape out in various papers and fabrics and glued them down to my prepared substrate which I had coated with gesso and transferred the image.  There are some good tips and techniques I teach to do this whole process somewhat easily.  

Here is the completed collage.  I could have put in the eyes with ink and called it a day, but I can't leave anything alone.   At this stage, it does look like a quilt.  I wanted to add some paint. 

and here is the actual finished painting.   I think I might work on it a bit more but you get the idea.