Dragon-Inspired Abstract Collage

Summer seems like a good time for learning something completely different. I decided to take a couple of short abstract classes with Julia Ricketts to learn a bit more about non-representational art, and take time to think about composition and mark-making.

This week we did an interesting collage exercise. We chose an object to mine for shapes ideas. I chose this fellow from a pile of action figures at home.

This dragon has some nice shapes. I picked out a few, transfered them to black paper, cut them out, and then arranged them (or pieces of the remaining negative shapes of black paper) on a white square. We had the option to place the cut out pieces over the edges of the square and crop them to create more compelling compositions. Here are a few I came up with.





Julie Devine, Dragon Collage 1, 2011





Julie Devine, Dragon Collage 2, 2011



Julie Devine, Dragon Collage 3, 2011