I never saw myself as the kind of person to do a collage, but as a way of going out of my comfort zone I decided to give it a try.

I started with two mixed media experiments which I didn’t like as they were. I liked the colors and textures in both and even thought they might work well together, but I didn’t like how the overall layout of each turned out.

Then I began cutting out triangle and diamond shapes. I chose to use geometric shapes, since the drawings on both original works were curved lines (florals and circles) and I thought it could make an interesting contrast. I also went for geos since these are not my “go to” shapes while drawing. I tend to draw more curved lines and wanted to try something different. The act of cutting the works felt quite liberating, as cutting up my art is not something I would normally or intuitively do!

Next I started playing around with the pieces making some decisions: Do I want to leave white space? Do I want the pieces to overlap? Do I want to mix cutouts from both original works or leave them separate?

I decided to make two collages – one mixing cutout pieces from the two works, leaving some white spaces; and another using cutout pieces from just one of the works with some overlapping.

Before gluing, I scanned in the cut out pieces just in case I ever want to pursue the somewhat crazy and probably time-consuming idea of making a digital collage. But I thought these could be handy in case I scan in a collage and need some filler shapes to create a repeat.

The gluing part was a bit messy; I ended up with sticky fingers and two nice collages. I love the broken florals look and the overall geometric layout as it is not something I would naturally draw.

These experiments are great for playing and discovering new techniques and ideas. You can see more mixed media art experiments on my Instagram feed.