Hi there, lovely to have you here.
All my artwork is one-off. That’s one of the beauties of handmade, producing something that is special and unique, portraying that single idea at that specific moment.
When it comes to the process of making a new collage artwork on a pre-existing object, the shape of the object influences the final look.
Most times it starts with a specific image that I have in mind or sometimes a phrase that I’d love to portray on a plate, or vase. If that’s the case, then I source for online images that would better illustrate the words.
From there, it’s time to get creative, putting images together in a designing software to decide on composition, size of the images, textures, texts, and so on, before printing them.
After the images are printed it’s time to get the scissors and carefully cut them very precisely.
At this stage I already have painted the plate or vase in a colour, or colours, that I wish the background to be. I hardly ever leave the object in its original colour. Most times they come with designs or patterns that don’t relate to my designs.
So, with all the images already cut, I blue tack them in place just to make sure I’m happy with the composition. When it all looks good, then I start gluing the images.
The decoration is the next step. I use acrylic pens to make details on the background, sometimes these details give impression of a textured background. They help creating the mood of the design.
After that, it’s time to spray varnish the artwork and the whole object to avoid any ink bleeding when applying the liquid varnish.
With that dry, it’s time to apply the water based varnish. Usually, I do two coats of it, allowing it to dry between coats.
Next, it is the solvent-based varnish. It is a more hardwearing varnish compared to the other two used in the previous steps. I prefer to use it just to make sure the design is thoroughly protected from damage caused by scratches, humidity, yellowing with time or even occasional water splashes.
This requires around three or four coats to reach a good finish, lightly sanding between coats.
That’s it. Once it’s all dry it’s time to clean the excess of varnish on the back of the plate and then attach the wire hanger, if it’s a plate.
As you can see it’s quite a lengthy process with different steps until the desired finish is reached. I’d say each artwork takes me three or four days to conclude, because of the drying period.
I find it all very enjoyable, each of the steps, and I get a kick out of seeing the finished artwork. I should really photograph the before and after so I can compare them, but most of the times I forget to do so and go straight into the transformation. 😊
I’d love to hear from you. Please, leave a comment bellow. Thanks for coming and see you next time.
Love & frisson,
Luciano R.