Memory and Nostalgia: Collage and Mixed-Media Painting
Adult Course | Registration opens 11/4/2025 10:00 AM MDT
In this one-day, 7 hour workshop, we will explore the power of memory and nostalgia through the vehicle of collage and water-based paints (acrylic, watercolor, and gouache). We will begin the class with the idea of memories whether from childhood, adulthood or dreams, and what that means to you while looking through magazines, books, newspapers, catalogs, and printed materials. Using water-based paints, we will create a base or background color(s) that will connect the collected images around a memory, or a place of nostalgia. Compositions can be referential, abstract, or surreal. Instruction will be given on how to adhere collage on panel along with finishing touches.
This class will have a lunch break.
Learning Objections
Students will be given a theme to work with while exploring individual memory or places of nostalgia. Working with water-based paints and found imagers each student will create a mixed media piece. Glue suggestions, including a demo will be provided.
Gesso board or wood panel, 9x12in
Water-based paints (choose favorite, or combination of any): Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache in primary colors, white and black. Additional colors are optional.
Scissors
Folder or large manila envelope
Round or flat brushes: one large, and one or two small detail brushes
Flat brush (3/4 or 1”) for glue (old brush, or one you don’t mind gunking up)
Mod Podge (Matte or Gloss), 8oz bottle
Plastic card (old credit card is great) for pressing glue
Collage materials you like to work with, i.e.: Photographs, Stamps, Magazines, Catalogs Books (old ones you don’t mind cutting up or repurposing), Printed articles, online images, etc.
Robin Whatley
www.robinwhatley.com
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is a reflection and reinterpretation of pop culture from the 50's, 60's, and 70's combined with a reimagined culture of today. For my mixed media paintings, I integrate magazine cut-outs with water-based paints to create 'other worldly' landscapes. For my collage series, I combine vintage magazine cut-outs on paper to create surreal, dreamy vignettes. These works are meant to reveal a deeper underlying psychological theme, feeling, or political statement that transcends time.
ARTIST BIO
As a Denver based artist with a background in arts administration, Robin has worked for the last 18 years as a freelance professional artist. After receiving a BFA with a concentration in painting from Colorado State University, she relocated to Denver in 2003 to further grow her art career. Robin’s work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions around the US including Arizona, California, Colorado, Rhode Island, Florida and Washington. Today, Robin continues to push her artistic boundaries and explore new creative processes from her at home studio in Denver.