11/12/2017 - TISSUE PAPER COLLAGE EXPERIMENTATION

I wanted to try working in tissue paper to create collages which could be potentially pasted out onto the street, however I had no idea how such a thin material would stand up to repeated gluing and sticking without the added support of a material base. As an easy theme I chose the recognisable forms of the turtle from my trip to The Deep, and I was also well aware of rising social awareness of ocean based plastics and the harm these can cause all marine life, however turtles in particular are effected as they often confuse floating plastic bags in particular for the jellyfish they naturally feed on. These turtles are a great example of charismatic megafauna, for their iconic and familiar appearance makes them a great poster species to front the ocean plastic awareness movement; their image strikes a chord with people and highlighting their endangerment can be a particularly powerful tool.


I sketched an initial plan composition just to begin working with the materials, and found that due to the translucent nature of the tissue I could actually trace directly from my design onto the tissue. Doing this made translating my design a lot easier, however as soon as I started cutting the papers thinness and fragility quickly became a hinderance. The slightest shake of the hand would result in massive tearing and the paper would stick and undesirably curl in the heat of my hands. Cutting sick small details was also an ongoing struggle however I persevered, and was still really liking the aesthetic produced. Details suck as the scales on the shell suddenly made my design come to life.

Using white tissue I created the image of a floating plastic bag. This material was particularly effective for this, as it captured the translucent nature of thin plastic, and allowed me to build up opacity with layers. I really liked how this was. looking however as soon as I glued my layers down I felt some of the effectiveness was lost as there was no longer enough definition between the different colours. The piece suddenly felt very craft based and less like an art object.

I thought at this stage to maximise both effectiveness and ease I needed to make these pieces bigger, and as seperate elements on a wall so as to maintain their visual integrity. I really liked the way the material was able to capture the plastic bag so effectively however, and wanted to continue exploring these forms in my collage.