Noah’s Ark.
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Enquiring minds have been wondering about how the Thaliad page decorations are being made, and so here are the stages of one image from start to finish.
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First come the drawings, usually quite rough, that guide the process.
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I prepare pages of thin paper worked with black acrylic paint. The mark-making is as varied as I can come up with, from the faintly worked with starved brushes, to dense fields of star-speckled black.
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From these papers the collage elements are cut. I don’t trace out the shapes, but cut them free-hand using the original sketch as a guide.
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The cut-out elements are loosely assembled into the composition. There are lots of adjustments at this stage, trying out ideas and keeping the whole process free-flowing. Sometimes drawn elements are added. I take photographs so that I can look at the various versions on-screen before coming to a final decision.
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Key elements are tacked down with tiny dots of glue to trial-run the composition. Finally the components are pasted down firmly, and the image (see top of post) is complete.
