Mixed Media or Paper Art... Collage... Whatever you want to call it!

It's fun and a great way to recycle some of the many magazines and garden catalogs I have laying around. In fact the garden catalogs made these amazing strips, especially Annie's Annuals catalog. So much so I feel like I should send her this canvas. But I also used Money magazine and Backpager magazine so any magazine would do. I started to make these "coils" by rolling thin strips of magazine pages. Not really easy to do and didn't look like anything from the side view. I did keep a few of those and use them as eyes and such. Then I looked up how other people did it and found a youtube video where they made first a straw and then she mentioned rolling it through a pasta maker. That was how I made the next 20 or so. Then I thought wouldn't they look even cooler if they were crimped and went and got a hand held one from Michael's for $20 regular price and used my 40% off coupon! DEAL!

Not crimped but made from straws.

Pasta machine for rolling flatter.

Bunch of straws these all came from magazines.

After buying the crimper. Ones on left are crimped and ones on right not.

First put on with rubber cement.

Rolling, rolling, rolling...

So you get the idea. I made a video but it was terrible so I'd have to redo it if anyone wants to see an action shot of making the straws. Several people bought fancy dowel rods and such I used either a pencil or longer paint brush handle (an art one of course) worked great. I used Elmer's glue, craft tacky glue and glue stick. I'd say Elmer's was best. The glue stick surprised me as to how thick it made the straws and hard to crimp. The Tacky glue took longer to dry and was messier. BUT nothing was as messy as the rubber cement. I was using that just for attaching to the canvas in case I didn't like them but I switched halfway through to Elmer's and that worked better. Rylie and I actually did that part together so this was a team effort. Later I found I could peel them off regardless of what I used and abandoned the rubber cement that may have been killing our brain cells. I "modge-podged" over it when I had half of them on, all of them on, and again some areas 3 or 4 times and again after painting some swirlies. I'm sure it may still need more Modge Podge. I'll take it to Jeanna Fearon, my Art Yoda, and see what she thinks.

So here's the finished (maybe finished) result:

Ok you want to see how it's really done. This woman is a professional and she's not recycling but buying this fancy paper from Thailand. She rolls it multiple laters and cuts with gardening shears. BUT WOWZA is the results worth it or what!

Amy Eisenfeld Genser's Version

Isn't that awesome!!!! Holy crap. I am not sure I have that kind of patience as if....I saw one of hers before making mine that made me think underwater but it was titled 'Tidal'. But this one I saw after I started and it is indeed titled 'Reef' so clearly this method just screams underwater reef. Then she has some more that are more like trees. You know how I feel about trees.

And then purple and green too? If anyone wanted to buy me some art this would be top of my list for sure. It's breathtaking to me.