French Curves

5 x 7 Mixed Media Collage

Nine years ago I took a design class at the local college. I had the idea that it would be interesting and easy; perhaps mostly a slide show. In reality it was the most difficult course I have ever taken in my life and I am a much better artist for it. And it was the result of one of the assignments of this class that got me thinking about collage as a medium.

There was a very long list of supplies that we had to purchase for this class and among those supplies was a set of French curves. We never used the French curves in any of our assignments and I've never understood how or when to properly use them; but I've turned them into stencils which I've incorporated in my artwork. In the past I've cut French curve shapes out of my scrap collages, but in this instance I used some of the palette paper I spoke of in earlier posts.