Illustrator Holly Stone-Barker said she has always been an artist, but seeing a Matisse retrospective exhibit at the Smithsonian, having a teacher help her tap into her passion for art and living in the Middle East helped her realize that collage-making was what she loved to do.
“Growing up in the Middle East, I was exposed to different textures and different art,” Barker said. “What I wanted to do was to translate all of those textures and colors into paper.”
Now Barker will teach attendees the art of collage-making and putting those collages onto greeting cards with the “Art Cards: Create with Color and Shape” class.
At the Art Cards class, Barker will teach her students secrets to making collages using the methods she has used to create illustrations for books. Robin McAndrew, community arts and outreach director for the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, explained that the class will teach students to make collages differently from the traditional sense of what a collage is.
“People usually think that a collage is just a bunch of cutouts from magazines and glued together,” McAndrew said. “What Holly will be doing is teaching you how to look at the cutout and make it into something.”
Students in the class will be able to make whatever they want, but Barker will be guiding them along the way. In the class students will be making two different collages. Those collages will be digitally shrunk down to print on greeting cards as well as printed in the future.
Barker said the first thing to start with is an idea. She then expands the idea by sketching out what she wants the final illustration to look like. She finally plots what kind of paper will achieve the desired texture or look.
“For me, sometimes the paper will inspire the idea,” Barker said. “If I think that a certain paper looks good and can be a ghost, for instance, I will start to sketch out pictures of ghosts. Sometimes I will find a pattern that I like, but not necessarily the color, and paint over it. It is like a puzzle trying to find the materials.”
Barker said students who are having trouble thinking of an idea going into the class on Saturday will be able to look at some of the work she has made in the past.
“I will have different examples of my work at the class,” Barker said. “They can look to see if they want to do a cart of fruit or an animal, and they can get inspired by what they see.”
Creating a collage takes different amounts of time depending on how elaborate the outcome is supposed to be or how long preparing the materials takes.
“One of the characters I was making for a book was a little red hen, and I wanted individual feathers to say ‘Little Red Hen’ so I had to print out a piece of paper with the phrase printed over and over, then I cut out each feather from the paper,“ Barker said. “Obviously that took more time than something less complex.”
“Art Cards: Create with Color and Shape” will take place Saturday, Aug. 1 from 10 a.m. to noon at The Red Shoes located on Government Street. The price of admission for the class is $35.
Barker will also be leading more classes in partnership with the Arts Council. Her next class will be part of the Art Council’s Women’s Week on Oct. 2.
Holly Stone-Barker will be teaching her methods to make collages at The Red Shoes located on Government Street on Aug. 1 from 10 a.m. to noon.
