1.20.2009

Here in honour of this special day, with apologies to Shepard Fairey, here is my Obama collage. It looks better if you squint at it!

Someone once left all this patriotic red white and blue scrapbook paper at a craft swap, so i took it home. Being Canadian, i thought i'd never use it. But i think it was put to perfect use here. We got up to watch the inauguration this morning and i wanted to do something creative to mark today. As much as this blog is about art and not politics, i still need a job and i am as hopeful as most americans that today is the beginning of renewal for the country.

If you are interested in doing this yourself - here are some basic instructions. Print out an image like this, a photograph converted to blocks of coulour. Or you can take any photo and use editing software to convert it to grey scale. Enlarge it as big as you can - the bigger the pieces the easier it will be. Obama was challenging, to get all those squinty lines. Keep your original to have a reference.
Cut out the largest sections of lights and darks These are your pattern pieces. Lightly glue them to the BACK of paper. Cut them out. Remove the pattern. Place the cut out pieces on a background. Note that your collage will be reversed from the original. Lightly glue the large patterns onto the contrasting paper. Cut out the next smallest section of the image. repeat until you have cut out all the different shaded areas.

I used the same technique to create this puppy out of scrap paper shown here.