Cheri: I love ballet. I like to watch it. I liked to dance ballet when I was younger. And I like any art form connected with it. When I decided to make this collage I  wanted to convey this in this piece.

The idea for this started when I bought a book at a garage sale that was a child’s book of ballet. The book was from the 60’s and it had a very stylized look to it. As I flipped through the book I came across this picture of a dancer in an arabesque. This picture was going to be the focal point. After I cut the picture out I flipped it over and felt the reverse side with the text was the better option.

I went through my scrapbook paper until I came across a pattern that I liked. Then I chose a frame. (I have several to choose from). I used spray adhesive to glue the paper to a mat and sized it to the frame. The frame says a lot about the piece and often if I can get the frame correct the rest of the piece seems to fall into place.

The fun part begins after that. I colored the dancer in and then I took little pieces of newspaper wrapped them around the end of the pencil to give them the form of flowers. I then dipped them in glue and placed them as the skirt for the dancer.

As I have said before I have all kinds of odds and ends that I picked up and sometimes these pieces just kind of call to me to be placed in a picture. The round paper disc was one of those. It has a vintage feel to it and I felt that the placement of it made it feel like the dancer was balancing on the tag. The butterflies were cut from tissue paper and have a really nice light, pastel, look to them.

Last but not least is the dancer that seems sad in the corner. She was another figure that I cut out from the book and I chose not to have the complete figure show for this. The piece does say some things about life to me, and I think that is what really makes me love collage so much.