Collage Faces Play Date

 Had a play date recently for me and three artsy pals to create Andrea deMeng-style collage faces.  i purchased a stack on black oblong canvases at Michael's for cheap - and thought this was the perfect project for them.  

I took a workshop with Andrea last year at Art is You Petaluma.  The idea was to simplify the art by not collaging the background.  the idea was that with the black background - you could get some pretty dramatic results with just a few collage elements and perhaps some stencils.

 This is how i started - a face from a magazine, hi Kate! and some other things that caught my eye.  Andrea called this "rehearsing your collage".

 There were 4 of us working on my small dining room table - but the 12 x 24" canvases all fit!

 It was also my friend K's birthday - so we made her a cute card with a blinged-out tiara.

We ate lunch on our laps around my big ottoman. 

i covered all bases, serving a gluten free organic, free range meal that all could enjoy.

 K and her tiara.

 K and her cake.

 So back to work... or play!  I added a background of stencilled medallions with a nice metallic blue paint. 

 Here is S's work in progress.

 Here is K's fabulous background with a stenciled 3-d textured border.

 Here is S's background - using a collage of napkins.

 And here is the background of Z's - with some of the same napkins plus a few with poppies!  See how working on the black canvas easily gives you a dramatic base to work from.  
it is like you cannot go wrong!  who knew?

Due to a mishap with melting crayons, our dear friend Z was not able to continue with her collage.  But i'll be sure to update the blog when she is done!

 Here is S's collage further along.  She took a mandala calendar image and sliced and diced it into small pieces and arranged them so artfully.

 Here we can see where K was headed - her he-model was being painted to look like a king wearing a velvet robe, coming through some grand doors.

 Here are the pretty roses that K brought me - they lasted almost 3 weeks!

 In my workshop, Andrea had suggested we avoid the cliche of a Carmen Miranda style headdress with flowers and fruit.  But i could not resist!  I love me some pretty flowers - and of course i needed some birds.

I painted over the face quite a bit to try and get the shading right.  It would have been fine to leave it as it was, with the original image, but i wanted to get some practice with painting faces.

Thanks to my gal pals for a lovely artful day!

Thanks again to Andrea for the inspiration!