ANGELS AMONGST US

Andrea Matus deMeng
Saturday May 4, 2019

“We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.” –Luciano De Crescenzo

Take a look at myths, folklore, and religions from across the globe and one of the elements you will find that they often have in common is the concept of an Angel. In fact, there seems to be an angel for just about everything, so whether you need the Angel of Negotiation or the Angel of Artichokes, there will be an angel to guide you. They may be delicate and gentile, or they may be of the more dark and ominous variety, but stories of angels are all around us and these stories will serve as our inspiration.

In this class we are going to make our own angels, whether mythological, religious or personally invented….we will take humble portraits and using some mixed media magic we will collage, sculpt, paint and transform found objects creating a magnificent angelic depiction of our own.

Some of the specific skills we’ll be tackling in this workshop include:

  • -incorporating your own personal symbolic iconography into your work
  • -creating wings through collage and found objects
  • -how to use tools for taking found objects apart and what to do to reassemble them into elaborate halos
  • -paint techniques, choosing colors, mixing colors, and combining paint with collage and objects.
  • -Illuminated paint techniques: iridescent, pearlescent and metallic tricks
  • -collage techniques, including collaging over found objects.

Teacher will bring:     

  • Tools
  • Metallic/iridescent/pearlescent paint
  • Portfolio Brand Pastels
  • Other mark making tools 

Supply List:

  • Cradled Wood Panel (not smaller than 9”X12” and up to 8”X16”)
  • Photocopies of pictures from magazines, vintage photos, portraits – please make sure they are photocopies or laser print (not inkjet printouts) and try to have them copied onto glossy paper if possible –make sure the face is the appropriate size for your panel.
  • Paper, ephemera and collage items (think about the symbols or icons that are important to you: words, numbers, images, flowers, birds, antlers….whatever is significant for you – make sure you bring a few pictures of wings as well)
  •  Paint: Golden Acrylics fluid or heavy body (white, black, any blue, red, and yellow, plus a couple more of your favorites)
  • Paint Palette (a paper plate will suffice)
  • Paintbrushes: bring just a few in different sizes, and at least one good detail brush
  • Water Container
  • Paper Towels and/or baby wipes
  • Golden Matte Medium (Medium sized bottle – should sound syrupy when you shake it)
  • Scissors
  • An assortment of found objects: brass filigrees, old jewelry pieces, old necklaces and/or bracelets, buckles, lenses, wings, typewriter keys, you can bring along plastic or metal wings if you wish… just about anything, bits of ribbon, sequins                  
  • Aves Epoxy Clay (we’ll be doing some sculpting so you’ll want your own – the small size will do)