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Category: Collage

Collage

Denton Freedom House Women’s Home Art Ministry

A new art ministry at the Denton Freedom House (DFH) Women’s Home was launched in January of 2025, which I have had the joy of finally seeing come to fruition after two years of prayer and preparation. The burden to do this was laid on my heart at the 2023 DFH Fundraiser Gala. As I listened to the amazing stories of lives that had been changed through this ministry, I was moved to help in some way. I knew that art could have a huge impact on anyone’s healing journey from my own experience and from sharing it with others through the Living Canvas Workshops, and I began to pray about beginning the volunteer process to serve there.

In January of 2025, I received the approval to teach art at the Women’s Home. God answered so many prayers to make this happen, and provided the finances for art supplies and brought another amazing woman to help me. Twice a month, we went and taught an art lesson that also helped the women connect with God in different ways, including Reading Scripture, Prayer, Art, and Journaling. There is something healing about creating, making choices, naming, and completing a project. This sounds like a familiar story I read once in Genesis 1 and 2. The process of creating has not changed much since then. We start with nothing, a void, and engage in creating together and enjoy the process and name. This gives meaning and value to the art created because it comes out of us and we are image bearers of God, our ultimate Creator and Lord. It’s a complete privilege and honor to continue to walk with these precious women who are so brave and eager to explore and learn, and grow. It’s like watching human flowers bloom before my eyes.

The piece below was a collaborative collage piece we did as a response to reading about the Fruit of the Spirit in Galations 5:22-23. Each woman used watercolor to express either love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control. Later, they were torn into shapes to form a waterfall. A piece of each woman’s project was combined with scraps from Hymn book pages and other paper. The end result is a piece we called “One Spirit”.

One Spirit, Collage, Denton Freedome House Women's Home, Art Ministry, Paint on My Walls, Cheryl White Art
One Spirit, Collaborative Collage Project, DFH Women’s Home Spring 2025.

To give financially to the DFH Women’s Home, use this giving link.

This piece is currently on display at The Village Church Denton as part of the Life in the Spirit Art Show. More information will follow about an upcoming reception soon.

Collage / Color

A Spring Tree for my friend

A friend messaged me on Facebook asking for a painting of one of my trees. It’s always a joy when someone I knew quite a long time ago reaches out and we can reconnect. I remembered her as an inspirational woman who loved God and her family well. She served and blessed others with her encouragement and humility and patient strength. I worked to create a piece that included teals and reds that she likes with a calm, serene feel.

Tree for Ginny progression! Enjoy!

As spring unfolded around me, the tree also came to life on my canvas. The background is acrylic laid on in layers. Most of the bark of the tree is dried acrylic paint that I affixed to the canvas with modge podge. As the branches thinned and reached for the edge of the canvas, I used mostly blue paint and applied most of the leaves with a palette knife. Here is how it all unfolded.

Contact me if you are interested in a similar piece or check out my Art For Sale page.

Collage / Color

Mixed Media Collage Roosters for Spring!

Collage is one of my favorite mixed media techniques to use when making these fun spring roosters. Using fun spring colors and various materials make their strutting attitude pop and grab your interest.

Creating these fun fancy spring roosters does take a lot of time and layers of materials, but they are well worth it and one of my best sellers at art sales and shows. Some of the materials used are hymn book pages, colored scrapbook acid-free paper scraps, or any other interesting torn paper and dried acrylic paint that I peal up off of a palette. This is my favorite thing to use for the feathers because the torn dried paint lends itself perfectly to that shape and it is never just one color. The pieces are assembled and glued to the canvas using Matte Modge Podge.

Meet some of my mixed media rooster stars.

Top Left: Clarence Top Center: Daisy Top Right Farah

Bottom Left: Florence Bottom Center: Gwendolyn Bottom Right: Spurgeon (SOLD)

Mixed Media Spring Roosters

Some of these are still available for sale. Check out the art for sale page and contact me if interested.

Collage / Inspiration / Light

A Hope and a Prayer

Hope and prayer were the inspiration for this sweet collage.

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.”

Emily Dickinson, American poet
Hope and A Prayer, collage, on, board, art, paintonmywalls, Cheryl White Art
Collage featuring, birds brightened with india-ink and polka dot wings, set against the snow covered ground of music from The Lord’s prayer and the night sky. Click here for more about how to create a Hymnbook collage.

“It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.”

Thomas Fuller, English churchman, Author, Historian

A woman I barely knew, and I, started meeting at 5:30 AM to pray in the room above her garage. My life from that moment on would never be the same. At the time there were very deep needs in our families and things did indeed feel very dark to me.

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

We were raying for answers for family members and other concerns. Six months later, a house on the same street came for sale by the owner and we miraculously got it. This enabled my dad to live with us during his last years of life. It moved us 1 mile from our church and 8 houses down from my new friend who prayed. The lives of people we were praying for started changing and miracles were happening, but the most startling thing that happened was the change inside me. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall came and went for 4 years and we kept meeting at 5:30 AM and all the while, my own heart was changing and softening and opening to knowing God in a way I never knew possible. I learned to let go of what I wanted and wished for and to trust that if God didn’t want me to have those things, whatever He did have was better. For me, learning to pray, was not about singing the right notes, but it was about learning love the song God wrote for me more than the song I was writing on my own. It was about loving God more than I loved the idea of any of my prayers being answered.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican cleric and theologian

I could not possibly list all the answers to prayer we saw come about, but I can tell you that we serve a God who hears the prayers of His children. He is our hope and he makes beautiful things in us when we hope in Him and pray. Through life and death situations and heart conditions, in spite of us and our failures and flawed prayers, God faithfully heard and answered. Lives changed. Losses came followed by blessings. Hard hearts became soft. Many of the answers came in unexpected ways and some of those have been the sweetest.

bird, collage, hope, and, a, prayer, daytime

One of the sweetest gifts through that entire season of morning prayer was the faithfulness of that precious praying saint who taught me to pray and was a friend to me when I was convinced I didn’t need one. Turns out, I did and I’m so grateful.

“You are never too late to prayer.”

Nancy Gibson, Author NancyGibsonWrites.com and WooHoo! The Joyous Response to Following Christ.

Collage / Color

5 Steps to Creating A Hymnbook Collage

Creating a hymnbook collage is easy and is a beautiful way to repurpose a used hymnbook or old book and also share it with someone else. Hymnbooks can usually be found in used bookstores, the older and more worn the better. Pages can be left as is or dyed in india inks or acrylic inks and cut or torn to become part of the final piece you are making. Using a specific hymn or passage from a book that is precious to someone else can make a card or framed piece even more inspiring and personal as a gift.

Materials

A used hymn book or old book, Modge podge ( I prefer matte) or a mixed media glue, Mixed Media paper, various other printed paper, tissue paper, acrylic paint and or india ink or acrylic ink, various scissors, punches or rubber stamps and ink are optional.

Singing Bird and Flowers, Paper Collage

Background

Start with making your background first. In the example above, I chose one hymn page. Mix a small amount of acrylic paint with about 70% water. Doing this makes the paint opaque enough so that when it is spread onto the hymnbook page, the words and notes still show through. You can experiment with just one layer of a single color of diluted paint as I did here, or add several with a brush or a sponge.

Design Elements

Using decorative scissors or simply tearing, layer several different-sized circles on top of each other using more painted hymn book pages or other colors of paper scraps. A bit of printed transparent tissue paper at the bottom added interest. I liked adding a bit of black and white dotted scrapbook paper to make the notes on the page and the rest of the design more cohesive. Using di-cuts, stencils or tracing other parts for your composition and the possibilities are endless for what you can add in this stage of the project. I formed the stems and leaves by simply tearing another page of the hymnbook that I had covered with diluted green paint.

Composition

Once you have your design planned, experiment a bit by moving the pieces until you have your desired composition. I use either mixed media or modge podge to assemble the piece and prefer matte over gloss. Enjoy playing in this stage. I think we miss out on so much as adults by thinking collage is for children, or art for that matter but it is for all of us. It’s my hope that in creating a hymnbook collage you connect with the child inside you who is still an artist.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Picasso

Frame your collage

The wonderful thing about building a collage this way is that if there is something you are not happy with, it can be covered up. Once you are done covering up mistakes, it is complete and it is time to frame it! You will be surprised how finished a collage can look once it is in a frame.

Hymnbook collage cards

Share your hymnbook art

For a personal way to share your Hymnbook Collage, try using this same technique for cards. For an example of collage made with dried acrylic paint pieces see How An Artist Thinks About Creating Something New.