I and Ann-Charlotte got the idea to do a series of arty portraits. And what subjects would be best for that? Ourselves obviously! The brief was kind of simple; use photographs of ourselves, our favorite mixed media techniques, such as collage, and explore and have fun.
We brainstormed ideas about wanting the portraits to have a handmade feeling, with elements of spring. As a part of this collaboration experiment, we wanted to find a process where we could collaborate by making a layer each and passing the piece back and forth to each other.
The start of the collage portrait project
To start off the collage portrait project, we went on an inspo hunt and put together a Pinterest board.
To spice up the images a bit we wanted to add pieces of ephemera and graphics. I truly love places like Freepik, it’s a huge resource for image makers. You can download stuff for free simply by crediting the artist. We used a few elements, and to “make it our own”, and give it that handmade feel, we printed out the elements, colored them in and glued them onto the portraits.
Have you tried an Instagram puzzle?
As a part of this experiment/ challenge/ exercise.. or whatever you want to call it since it was all of that, we also wanted to put the images together as an Instagram puzzle. Oh jeez… now that totally leveled up the hard work to a new dimension. The whole composition needs to look good with a central focal point, rule of thirds, color scheme yada yada.. and each picture needs to be a stand-alone element. Let’s just say my inner critic had a meltdown and I had to surrender. Enough pixel pushing, let’s just publish and get it over and done with.
As mentioned previously, this was part of an experiment with so many layers.
It was our first attempt at collaborating on a distance.
It would be great to see what happened if we could continue working on the pieces once they were enhanced print them out and continue adding real or handmade elements, to make them digital again and continue that until we had the perfect image.
However, I enjoyed this exercise and it gave me an appetite to continue experimenting. How about you, have you done any self-portraits lately?
Love Stina
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