lol "Art": the minimalist collage

When it comes to DIY projects, it's obvious that I rarely break a sweat with mine. In other words; I like 'em simple.

As I mentioned in one of my lengthy, dramatized stories, I have occasionally put together little works of art as gifts that I called minimalist collages. I shared the one that I made for Falcon, which looked like this:

As you see, it's basically a painted canvas with a word, and a picture of a leopard cut from an old book decoupaged on it. Definitely not what one would normally call a collage. The method behind this series was to choose an animal to represent the particular wrestling performer as well as an adjective used to describe him/her. Then do art.


I should backtrack...this one isn't the first I had made. The first was created (though not gifted) to a guy who wrestled as...let's just call him "CVZ." I don't want to point him out on the internets. Like many of my tales, this one is from that crazy summer of 2012. I had plenty of time on my hands and I was really getting into the arts and crafts. This dude was going through a pretty big life tragedy and had just moved into an apartment alone. I thought that maybe I should make him some wall art. AS A FRIEND. I mean, I had the materials laying around.
Anyway, I started with a bunch of pictures cut from old, tattered books that I had collected. My theme was the pompous, grandiose, dick character he played in WAW. I painted a canvas in blue (CVZ's color) and swirls of black and sparkles which actually came out quite nice. After trying to arrange my cutouts onto the painted canvas like one would a collage, it looked "meh." I took off everything but the drawing of a tiger from a book about drawing animals. I used some letter stickers to spell the word "awesome."
Of course, that time period was a roller coaster and when I completed this, I chose not to give it to him because I didn't want to look like a freak. I just checked to see if it was still under my couch...

Yes! There it is! It looked decidedly more "awesome" without the dust layer, but there you have it. Here's a little bit of "how to."

Gather materials. That picture is the beginning of Falcon's piece. I've got a canvas, some picture cutouts, letter stickers, paint brushes, and paint in the color of his wrestling tights. Not pictured: Mod Podge. You need that.
Let's jump way ahead. In April, I decided it was a good time to honor another of WAW's finest for his b-day. I present; Christian Sain.
The first thing I did was decide what animal I wanted to use. It wasn't an easy thing to pick, but once I decided on a cobra, I found it was the perfect choice. The cobra is the snake known for its hood around its head which it flares out when ready to strike, like the showy entrance pose of a wrestler making his way to the ring. Their sinewy, graceful movement with great speed brings to mind many of Christian Sain's great matches. Basically: the cobra is an aggressive, deadly snake with a loud hiss and some with the ability to spit venom; yet they move along gracefully and regally, like royalty. An easy comparison to Chris.
I was happy to have the chance to pull out my stash of supplies:

Those Walter T. Foster "how to draw" books were only $0.99. Here's some of the stuff in my suitcase:

stamps and stickers!

a bunch of awesome stencils!

More stickers and some little rub on letters!

Oh, guess what? I couldn't find a single decent image of a cobra in any of many children's encyclopedias or science books. I was going to have to draw my own! But first, the background.

I started with two colors; silver and gold. These were the colors of our wrestling attire when we were a team. Silver and black mostly, but for a short time gold and black. I wanted to make a hypnotic swirly background.

It looked pretty nice after using many layers of paint, but I guess I couldn't leave well enough alone. I added black.

For whatever reason, I really liked my swirl. Ooh, look up close:

Using white paper and a pencil, I found a one of those step-by-step-how-to-draw sites and picked a nice little snake. Once completed, I cut him from the white paper and adhered it to a piece of silver paper.

Hellooooo

Now for the descriptive word. I probably should have used "glorious" but the one I had been kicking around was "unrepentant." Like: "the villain was unrepentant of the damage he had done, as he strutted off in the act of giving no fucks at all." Perfect for a heel wrestler. What sucks? Long word and a small picture.

I picked the letters that I thought matched best and rearranged them and the snake all over the board, eventually deciding on the diagonal letters. Using Mod Podge, I painted the back of my cobra drawing and pressed it onto the canvas, flattening it out to ensure there were no bubbles. After an hour, I gave the whole thing a top coat of Mod Podge and let that dry. Then I glue gunned those cardboard letters in place. Like the other two I showed you, I included some studs to toughen it up. Finally:

There it is! My birthday gift to Chris!