Surface Decorating and Collage

A couple of weeks ago I had a weekend of learning and creativity in Mandy Pattullo's workshop "Surface Decoration". The Saturday was mainly used learning some techniques and playing around with them. On Sunday we created two or three larger pieces. I chose to make just two big ones. Mandy's work is much more "decorated" than mine and I think mine was on the whole least decorated of all the works. Mandy is so very generous with her teaching and it is always really good fun to attend. If you are anywhere near Newcastle it is worth attending. Look in "Horsley Printmakers" website for her courses.

Anyway, I had an idea of creating something to on Elf son's wall and the other piece I had not thought of. I got the son's "boy dreams" picture pieces together much quicker than the other one, as I did not have a ready idea or colour story in my mind. I have called it "particles". The Boy dreams picture has pieces which have special meaning to Elf Son.

There is collage, lino print, print with blocks and wall paper, monoprinting, painting with brusho, resist techniques, stitching, textile and line drawing all in one picture.
The frame is a cheapy one from IKEA. I would have liked to put it in a nicer frame, but I am still slightly nervous about hanging pictures with glass on Elf Son's walls. This is with plexiglass and much safer. I will see if I can buy some proper matting for it as I think that would improve the looks to no end.

The particles picture got a detail added at home:

I added a real old skeleton key buy sewing it on.

As you can see I have used not only Mandy's stamps, but also other artists' copy righted material in form of postcards and pictures. It doesn't matter as this is for myself, I would not do this if I was to sell the picture. Here is the "particles"

I chose to frame it under glass in IKEA frame. When I was measuring this picture for the frame, I remembered another picture I had wanted to frame a long time. This time work of Elf son, two years ago:

These two have same colours and look really nice together in their frames. This is obviously a portrait of me, made for the mother's day. Behind the picture it says: "I love my mummy because she massages my back every evening and it makes my back feel good."

Now I just need to hang them.