Nurture and Nature

by Helen Goulty
(Co. Cork Ireland)

I collected together some of my favourite items for use on this, my first collage.

Initially, I painted the art board with a white Gesso, and then I stenciled a floral design shading it in shades of pink yellow and peach onto tissue paper; and then tore the tissue paper in to odd sized shapes and glued it in sections on to the art board. While waiting for that to dry, I painted onto some bubble wrap that I had saved and pressed the painted surface on to another section of the blank board to get a dotty effect. I then added lots of little strips of different types of wrapping paper and wallpaper that had different textures that appealed to me. I also used some Tyvec material that I had painted and stamped and then heated with a heat gun, which gave it a slightly raised and bubbled texture. I placed a small patch of that onto the board to give it some additional texture.

For the wording, I used different types of fonts on the computer, printing them out in a sepia toned ink to give it a vintage look. I scattered the wording throughout the collage to catch the viewers interest and to draw the viewers eyes to the beautiful vintage flower faces. (I felt that they added a quirky but pretty feminine touch to the piece). I had saved some old printed paper with copies of old postcards and their stamps and parts of a message. I also used some dictionary definitions that I liked. I cut out some hearts and stars with wording on them so that the viewer would have something else to draw them in to the picture. (Personally I find it really pleasing to spot something different that I have missed each time I look at a picture, and I hope that anyone that views this piece will do the same).

The pieces were all glued on with a PVA glue individually and allowed time to dry, I then glazed over the whole picture with a pale pinky-peach colour which reminded me of the old faded beauty of times gone by.

I had tremendous fun in creating this piece and in sourcing the materials. Thank you to Vintage Image Craft for the lovely vintage flower faces, they really made the whole project come together. My thought process in using them was, as with a family, what is loved and nutured will grow, the same applies to flowers in a garden, and the combination of the flowers with pretty little happy faces really drove that point home.