MICHAEL MEW INSPIRED COLLAGE

In art, we have been working towards the completion of a mixed-media collage inspired by the artist, Michael Mew. Michael Mew, if you don't know, is a (currently) 61-year-old collage artist who is known for his unique, mixed-media collages as well as painting, but for this topic we focused primarily on collages. 

Creating the collage was quite interesting yet scary at the same time; I've never actually tried my hand at collage for a long time. 

We started off by cutting out pieces of magazine; this was my favourite part personally. I didn't have an idea in mind at this point and I think that's where I went wrong. I found that without a structured idea or thumbnail sketch, which I was unable to complete because I wasn't here (oh, the shame!) the whole piece was difficult to work with and I couldn't decide on anything. 

The next part we took some time to arrange and come up with potential ideas WITHOUT gluing down. We'd previously been working with Whaea Rowena on focal points, thumbnail sketches, leading lines, etc, etc, but for me it was really about just getting something reasonable on the page. Second red flag. 

Now, the task we were set was meant to be a mixed-media collage, so of course we had to use another medium. We also had the task of including a bird in our work so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone (pun intended) and draw out a rorirori (grey warbler) bird, which was my personal favourite out of the choices we had. The birds, by the way, are also the names for the new building that are currently being constructed at Hornby High School. 

Another media I used in my piece was watercolour paint - purple. I planned this out as a 'river' - breaking the piece in two to make it look unique, and also to colourblock, which is something we learnt about previously. Colour-blocking is a technique I wished that I used more in this just because I think the work became way more busier and cluttered than I would have liked. 

Now, onto the point of the blog point.

Focal point

My focal point was intended to be the hand. I thought this was a good choice because it was bright and big, but as the work developed I could see that I needed something else. It was Whaea Rowena that influenced my decision to actually do something about it and I decided to incorporate some white paint into it to make it stand out. I ended up painting some dripping white off the side of the hand which I think looked good, although it was difficult to get the white to look opaque because the glossy card beneath it was not a good texture to work on top of. This is another example of why I really need to plan and structure my artwork next time!!!

Leading lines

I think I used leading lines okay. There are lines stretching from the side and the top. One thing we learnt about was using a subtle kind-of 'grid' pattern in our artwork, which is a technique I think Michael Mew uses very well. I really liked, however, how I used the diagonal line in the bottom right corner and I think this is something I'll incorporate into my future art.

Layers
One thing I think I did well was how I layered my artwork out. There were some places that were layered and some that weren't, which I think made for a really nicely layered piece.

Overall, I'm definitely not proud of this collage because of all the mistakes I made not only in the actual 'making' process but in the planning process. But, as Bob Ross says, we don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents. But at least this happy little accident that this turned out to be is my happy little accident.