Commenced in 1991 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It started out as a pastime during recovery from a long illness. I was introduced to decoupage by a friend who thought it could be therapeutic for me... Patricia Dielemans. I'd never heard of it, but liked the idea of doing cut-outs and arranging them in my own style and with my own colour choices.
It was about all I could handle doing at the time.It brought me calm and concentration and artistic creativity.It became my whole life for the next five years, and unbeknowns to me, it became my healing medium in recovery from a stroke, a very dangerous life-threatening stroke.
This fact came to light many years later under MRI examination purely by accident when investigating another unrelated symptom.
I found it strange to suddenly be able to paint and draw and do design layouts that actually looked very good, not only to my eyes but others liked them too.
I had never done art before, I was no good at it at school and now suddenly I had this talent that caught me by surprise in as much as I really wanted to do this and I didn't understand where it was coming from..It became an all consuming passion in my life, an exaggerated passion, unexplained...
My medical doctors offered no explanation for this big change in me. I followed my path not knowing where it would lead, but trusted it was doing me good and besides I was enjoying myself. I created many pieces, the first a bit amateurish, but I got better at it as time went on, more daring, more colourfull, more style developed.
I couldn't leave the house for eighteen months, not even to cross the footpath, it was a nightmare going outside, I couldn't do it. My Decoupage became my life and I was lucky enough to have a large room to dedicate to my work downstairs at the back of the house where I could safely leave the window open to let out the smell of the paints and laquers.
I diligently followed "Manning on Decoupage" and learnt it all from him as classes outside were not an option and my friends brought me what I needed to do my work. I pushed on and on and on working my brain every day to its full capacity and pushing it beyond its limits as much as I could. Some days I worked so hard I would find myself sweating from the concentration and intensity of my work. I often wondered why this concentration was so intense and never did understand it until many years later I read a book called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. It explained a lot together with the MRI's of my brain which showed extensive damage from a stroke in the Left side of my brain.
Apparently we use the Right side of the Brain to Create and Draw...My work explained itself..My left Brain was resting and healing itself during this process and my Right Brain kept working, harder than it ever had before...It stretched to its limit then.
This was my miracle, decoupage for me became my rehabilitation program and it brought me back to normality so that I was then able to pass this gift onto others and help them.
My first group of students were a mixed group of mentally and physically handicapped people of various ages who loved decoupage as much as I did and I could see the improvement in their lives as we went along, even the psychologist who took care of this group was amazed at the results we were achieving.
From there I started teaching private students and word spread of my work and the Director of Fine Arts Courses approached me and asked if I would like to teach for the C.A.E. ( Council of Adult Education) in Victoria.
I designed and wrote an Eight Week Course on the subject and a Full Day Workshop for those that could not do the entire course.
I enjoyed this work immensely for eight years with them.
My pleasure was derived from seeing what we are able to do with our hands and how each and everyone of us if so different in our creativity....
DECOUPAGE is an ancient art form dating back to the Persian artisans in the early 1600's and became very fashionable in France (Hence the Name) then spread across to Venice in Italy where it was adapted to furniture in the 1800's. It is the Art of Cutting Out Pieces of Paper and Painting them, Placing them in the design of choice onto a Painted background. Mainly on Wooden objects but can be adapted also to Metal, Glass and other mediums around today. The traditional Method is to coat the painted and papered object with many coats of laquer sanding smoothly in between coats until a high standard of silk like finish is achieved.
My works....Some you will see in the photographs here and FOR SALE on
www.paintnpaper.etsy.com
