Book Review: Traci Bautista's Collage Unleashed
By Sarah Ganly
Bautista's book was fun to read and gave me a lot of good ideas. This book described in detail many different methods of making collages; it also gave detailed examples of artwork. This book had many exercises and projects that I found inspiring.
One of my favorite ideas in this book is the use of paper towels to create interesting and beautiful paper. This book describes different methods of adding color to paper towels and using them for collage. I have used similar techniques in the past with loose leaf, but I like the use of paper towels because it is a cheap and accessible way for many people to make there own fun paper.
Another idea that Bautista's book covered that I really enjoyed was the use of doodles. In her book she showed how doodles can be used to develop different types of writing, and to explore different styles of drawing. I also think it was interesting to see the use of space on a page differs from regular drawing when one doodling. This book offers many doodling exercise such as creating girl faces when doodling I especially like the use of writing when doodling and appreciated her ideas of making the writing interesting. The author suggests overlapping words, using multiple lines when writing, writing inside lines, and adding patterns to letters. I think these suggestions make doodle writing more fun, creative, and personal. I also thought the use fo a white out pen when doodling is a good idea that I have yet to try. Overall Bautista's ideas on doodling make mindless scribble become an important part of a piece of artwork.
The technique included wetting the paper and drizzling it with different color paints that have been watered down. You can also use the paint to make patterns and designs. This was fun because the colors blend in beautiful patterns, and this was interesting to me because it tied in with the ideas on color that I have been reading about in the other books I have been studying for this project. This exercise created awesome paper that I have used in my collages, and it helped me study different color combinations. This project was also informative because it helped me see how white creates an interesting tint to different colors.
This book is very informative in many ways, and it has helped me develop creatively in several ways. This book presents ideas about creating artwork that is simple and inexpensive. I also enjoy the methods presented in this book because they are very expressive and allow the artist to creative in a very natural and unrestrained way.
