Candy Collage

Dear Liza,

On Thursday I got to try something I didn’t even know would work. The “Art Journaling Secrets Unleashed” challenge topic was “Candy”. I love candy, but I didn’t want to try and draw a piece of candy; it felt too hard and no fun at all.

We have LOTS of candy around the house, so I looked at the wrappers and decided they looked like flowers. Maybe I could make a collage out of them?

But the wrappers are waxed paper… can you collage with waxed paper? I didn’t find anything about it online, so I just jumped in on my own. Figuring that the main problem was the wax itself, I put the wrappers between layers of an old towel and ironed them to get some of the wax out.

Then I cut out some square bits from miniature Tootsie Rolls, and flowers and leaves from Tootsie Pops and fruit chews, and laid them out to make a vase and bouquet. It looked….. okay.

After lunch, I took another look and realized it needed some context. A place for the vase to sit, a background for it to sit in front of. I was sure happy I hadn’t glued the pieces down yet! Since my flowers were all bright pinks and oranges, I made to table and background cool blue and purple.

Then came the real test: I glued the still- waxy wrappers down, using Modge Podge and a brush, and sure enough, they stuck!

I put in some shading and lines with colored pencils and a micron pen to make the edges stand out more, and I was done. I was pleased and surprised. I learned something new and discovered a whole new set of materials to play with.

Tomorrow’s challenge is “Masks”. That should be fun! Paint, crayons, collage, fabric…. the possibilities are endless. Maybe even candy wrappers. Yum, yum, yum…

Love,

Grandma Judy