I found a piece of matboard. A deep sagey-olivey green. It was old and messed up, with a piece of double-stick tape embedded in the middle. I'd cover that up anyway, and it was the perfect background. I set to cutting the paper. Two-inch squares of pale and dark teals and lime greens. A beautiful sky. Circles, gradiating from white to gray to black. Beautiful clouds. Very pale blue circles covered in white mulberry. Clouds for the other side. Strips of golden yellows for the sun. A stunning copper metallic paper, cut into long triangular strips for the sun's rays. And finally, triangles of varying sizes in tones of red-violet for the jagged lines.
I brought my materials home and started working. I finished the sky far too fast for my liking. At this rate I'd have the piece done before the weekend was over. I went out shopping for more paper and found papers to my liking. I came home and set to work on the next layer: the sun. First the rays. I arranged them in a circle and started mounting them to the board. When I looked at the finished rays there was something wrong. They were clumped on one side. They were too far apart on the other side. They were leaning toward one end of the page and didn't look like sun rays at all. (I've always had a hard time with sun rays.) But maybe it would turn out okay once I started putting the yellows in. Nope. The yellows seemed to exaggerate the problem. I cried. The piece was ruined and there was no way for me to fix it. I ripped it up and threw it in the dumpster.
I couldn't handle it. The one thing keeping me going through the weekend was ruined and gone. I lost it. I made a phone call before I did something even more stupid.
I could start over. But what do I mount my collage on? The matboard was gone, ripped to pieces and in the dumpster. I had canvas board. No, that wouldn't work. I looked in my closet and to my surprise I still had white illustration board from my interior design class. Perfect! My hopes were rising. I figured out the mistake in my original piece: I had a design in mind but I didn't sketch it out. In my first collage I made the design up as I went along. I measured and sketched the major parts onto the illustration board. Thinking of how quickly I finished the sky on the original piece, I cut all my colors down to a smaller size. One-inch squares for the sky. Half-inch squares for the sun. And the rays...I needed a new color for the rays as I'd used up the beautiful copper paper. I found an orange color somewhat to my liking and cut it into shorter triangles. I started on the sky.
All day Sunday I worked on the sky. I finally finished it and left the rest for Monday. I brought my collage and all my supplies into Art Awakenings. I had new colors for the clouds, the next step in my collage process. I cut more circles. Instead of the pale blue with white mulberry, I used one of the white and gray colors I'd nixed from the other side. It took time to find the right combination of circles to make billowing clouds. I wasn't sure if I liked it, but I continued on to the sun, the demise of my original collage. This time I had a circle sketched out to follow for the rays. I affixed the rays to near perfection. I breathed a sigh of relief. The next step: tiny pieces of yellow to fill in the sun. This step took nearly two hours. And finally, the large triangles in the middle of the sun. I brought it home, trimmed the edges, and it was finished. I named this collage "The Journey."
The process of making this collage proved significant. I thought I had it all planned out. Everything was going well. Then something happened and my plans were ruined. I got upset. I "lost it." I ripped up my progress and gave up. Now it is time for me to go back to my original plan and try again. I'm scared. I feel so alone and vulnerable. But I have to do this. I have to overcome this and continue on my "journey."
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