Refreshing return to a first love

Like many adults taking that first step onto the art path, I started out with watercolor on paper. I simply painted the colors I loved, teal, purple, pink, and all manner of blues. I was having fun and it occurred to me to tear up my pretty painted paper into strips, glue them together and reapply them into intricately woven creations on another sheet of watercolor paper. I was unknowingly participating in a specific and time honored method of creating art - collage. That was in 1986 and I was in my early 20's, working at building a career unrelated to art, and still considering art to be a hobby. Now, many years later, and much more art education under my belt, not to mention abandonment of my professional career for the duties of raising two children, I am returning in a serious way to my art practice. Last weekend I whimsically decided to take a workshop taught by an artist I wasn't familiar with at all. As it turned out, his course featured collage techniques. At the end of the workshop I was completely re-smitten with collage and very happily produced a work that I loved using old paintings and papers saved over the years. I have been learning to paint with oil on large wooden panels for a while now, and this recent return to paper felt like a warm spring day after a winter of dark rainy days!

A collage from a recent workshop