Collages of sadness

Whenever I am in pain, I feel a deep calling to express sadness visually. It is my tried and tested coping mechanism for dealing with overwhelming emotions and traumatic memories. Alongside drawings, the collages below are representative of how I shake off pain.

My process for these collages begins with drawing. Often a drawing when an idea pops to mind, which I will then use as a basis for more detailed drawings later on, sometimes using photographs of myself as reference points. I then move onto adapting the drawing into a collage with my pre-made textures. These are created during big batches of mono-printing which you can read more about here.

The distorted colours of these pieces are created using Procreate’s chromatic aberration tool. Mostly, I stay clear of digital methods of finishing work, however, I am slowly being converted to using Procreate for colour. When sadness overtakes, often everything else becomes too much; distorted from reality. The chromatic aberration represents this skewed relativity of pain.