KRIS STANTON

I have felt like an artist all of my life. I was the kid who made everyone a drawing on their birthday and they kindly told me how wonderful they were. I have always had a lot of encouragement from family and friends. I have art degrees that are 20 years apart from 2 different 2- year colleges. I worked as a graphic artist back in the days of T-squares and X-acto knives. I went back to school to learn about computer graphics as that became the new norm and as amazing as that all is I prefer working with my hands to create. I have experimented with many mediums over the years. I have played with watercolor, acrylics and pencil drawing. Several years ago an artist friend of mine gave me a book on paper collage. Chigiri-e is the technique of Japanese torn paper collage. It's like "painting with paper". As soon as I opened the book I knew I had found my comfort zone! From the first try at creating a paper collage I was hooked. Don't you just love that feeling! 

I work on stretched canvas. It has a great play when applying the papers and is very strong. I use a gallery wrapped canvas style so that I can continue the image around all sides. This creates a piece of art that needs no frame so it is light weight and easy to hang even in a large size. The process of paper collage is to tear or cut paper and layer it using it just as you would use paint. It is very similar to watercolor in that you start with light colors and move on to darker colors, shadows and details as you work. The papers are applied with a gel medium and are layered until the desired look is created. My work changes as I gain experience and try new papers, of which there are endless designs, weights and colors. 

I still dabble in many forms of art. YouTube is a wonderful resource for new things to try. My latest interest is acrylic paint pouring, both on canvas and on rocks. I’m sure it won’t be my last artistic discovery! I thank Quabbin Art Association for the opportunity to post my work and to continue to learn from its very talented membership!