Unlock your inner artist
So you want to be a super-awesome artist? Well, you’ve come to the right place because these ativities will have you creating like John Stezaker and Lorna Simpson. Don’t know who they are? You will soon!
Activity #1: Combine and create
The artist
John Stezaker likes to combine old photos of Hollywood film stars, and
his creations are a little strange, to say the least! He creates two
pictures in one. You can still see both photos as individual people, but
because the features fit together so perfectly, an entire new face is
created. It’s as if John has made film-stars monsters from two people
who now exist as one!
- Visit the MOMA and see some artwork by John Stezaker.
- Cut out photos from magazines and have fun joining them together in interesting ways.
- You don’t have to make faces, like John. You can create weird landscapes, animals or objects. The main thing is to spot elements that make two different images fit together in surprising ways.
Activity #2: Have fun with faces
The artist
Lorna Simpson is a super-awesome artist who made artworks using cut-outs
from Ebony, a magazine for African-American readers. After a while, all
the models in magazines kind of look the same because that’s how models
tend to look. So Lorna decided to cut out the faces of models and then
paint amazing hairstyles on them. Rather than look “generic”, the faces
in Lorna’s pictures become a celebration of individuality, colour and
joy.
- Visit the Ebony Collages gallery.
- Cut out the faces you find in magazines and than think of creative ways to bring them to life.
- Draw hair on your cut-out faces, like Lorna, and give them crazy accessories, like hats, earrings and glasses. However you choose to transform them, make sure you leave enough space to paint around your heads when you position them on the paper.
Source: Henry Carroll & Rose Blake, How to be a super awesome artist.