Ben Nicholson, Techniques and Processes

Ben Nicholson is an abstract painter who uses collage in muted colours and shapes. His work features a variety of textures and colours, which give different feels. He uses oil paint, along with materials like gesso (a primer-like substance that gives paper and canvas a more strengthened feel, and adds texture) and pencil, with collage to create his work.
I looked at Ben's art for inspiration when creating my final collage in life drawing. i used the following pieces mainly as a reference for colour, texture and shapes:

I created my collages with glue, tissue paper, brown paper, black paper, pastels and blue ink. I used the tissue to imitate the textures Ben creates with gesso, oils and the layers of collage he uses. I followed his colour scheme with brown, black and blue. To imitate the first image better, I could have used newspaper, but I was wary of adding too much to my collage and making it too busy. To imitate the second image, I left some white space and added my geometric-style lines in blue and black to highlight parts of the body. I also tried to lay my black and brown paper at angles to achieve this effect.

Life Drawing - 4

Today in life drawing, I created collage pieces based on my drawings.

At first we began with gesture drawings to warm up, and then we did a half-hour drawing and collage. 

I am really happy with this collage. I love the way the lines frame and accentuate the curves and shapes in the body, and I like the accents the brown paper gives. I used pastel for my outlines and I think this gave a nice movement to the piece.

Finally, I created this college. I tried to put my own spin on the style of Ben Nicholson, with my accents of colour and my use of tissue paper and pastel for texture. I once again used my lines to frame the body, but I feel that this was not so successful this time.