Second Art Postcard Marathon 4 - 5 June, 2016

After creating 18 art postcards (shown above) last week which took me between 30 to 60 minutes each plus time for clean-up, I decided that there has to be a better way to produce more within a shorter time. Rather than starting from scratch for each postcard, I came up with a plan for one big piece of artwork that can be roughly cut up and trimmed later.

Last Saturday morning, I set up a temporary table using two sawhorses and four shelves (each shelf measures 11.75 inches wide by 72 inches long). I then rolled out a large white paper (available from art supply stores) which is larger than the width of the table. I also pulled out the acrylic paint, stencils, blocks, carved stamps, paper towel, and all kinds of mark-making tools.

Instead of covering the whole surface with gesso, I would apply gesso (white, black & clear) on certain areas, using different techniques such as stamping, brush strokes, or even stenciling.

After the gesso have dried, I started apply acrylics (craft and artist grade) in light or neutral colors on certain spots.

I kept on adding colors until I had most of the surface covered. Once I was satisfied with the general coverage, I started the stenciling process, usually with darker or lighter colors depending on what color I was stenciling on.

I kept on building layers and layers of colors, paints & stencils until I'm satisfied. I then started gluing the collage materials on the paper with Mod Podge - mostly newspaper and deli paper that were once used as underpaper. I also used paper towels that were used to wipe or remove the excess paint from the artwork.

After they have been dried overnight, I took a quick look and see what needs doing. I decided that I would use some paste paint, water-soluble colored pencils, and paint markers. I also did several block printing in certain areas.

I decided to leave some areas blank so that I can either add more collage, paint, marks or even stencils after the whole thing was cut up into smaller pieces. Before I started to cut the paper up, I took close up photos for digital print-outs so that I can use it as collage materials for other projects.
Here are a few:

 After I took several photographs of the whole piece, I cut a rectangular hole (6 inches x 9 inches) from a large piece of white paper so that I can use it as a "cropping tool" to find the sweet spots on the painted paper.

I moved it all over the place to find good compositions, and as soon as I find one, I draw the lines with black paint markers and then move on to other area for another one. I don't have a fast and hard rule for finding the good compositions, but I just simply keep on moving the cropping tool until it "looks" good or interesting to me. You can see the black lines in the photo below - they don't always lined up with each other.

 Once I outlined all of the areas to be cut up, I used a pair of sharp scissors and happily cut them - I don't even think about whether it was good one or not - I can always make it better by adding another element or two.

I saved and added all of the trims, scraps and small extras to my current collage stash.

I am very happy to report that I have 36 rough cut pieces (approximate size: 6 x 9 inches) that will be later trimmed down to 5.5 x 8.5 inches after more details & finishing touches have been added. It took me only six hours to produce all of them.

The stencils that I used in the above project are from Stencil Girl Products (including mine), Green Pepper Press (Michelle Ward) and Donna Downey Studios. Other stencils were either cut by me or reused from manufactured products or fabric. It was a quick and fun project - I will later show the finished postcards one at a time.

*Full disclosure: Andrew Borloz does receive compensation for his stencil designs from Stencil Girl Products in the form of royalties, however, he does not receive any form of compensation or "free" product from other designers, manufacturers or retailers.