Straight Lines
Walking around my house, you might notice that almost all the artwork hanging on the wall is slightly crooked. I’m never sure why this happens, but when they get looking too crooked, I tilt everything back. I wish it was such a quick fix in the work I’m creating.
I’ve never been good at measuring or cutting. I’ve done some quilting and the finished quilts never have the beautiful straight seams. I love the quilts created in Gee’s Bend that never rely on straight lines and still are beautiful. One reason I love college is the freedom to have odd shapes, ripped pieces and the freedom to make a controlled mess. There are sometimes where I do really need a straight line.
I’ll be working away, cutting and gluing and then I step back and see what I’m doing and groan. Crooked again. I don’t know if anyone else will notice the slight lean where it should be straight, but to me it’s screamingly obvious.
I put my concern to the group at Yum City and, as always, they had lots of suggestions.
Don’t worry about it! It doesn’t look crooked
Use a T-Square
Cut your pieces with an Exacto knife and a metal edged ruler
Use a paper cutter
Glue another piece over the edge of the crooked one to blend them together and make them look straight
Stand up to work so you see your work from farther back
I’ve been putting all of these suggestions to use and have noticed some improvement. I’m also working on my green Alvin cutting mat and I’m using the grid lines to line up my papers before I glue.
While doing my ICAD project, I wanted my small collages to be stored together instead of having stacks of slippery cards. I snagged a new mixed-media sketchbook and decided to draw in a 4 x 6 rectangle to keep me to my required size. This is really helping me keep my lines straight and provides a little wiggle room if I need to go over the edges a bit. Those extra bits can be cropped out when I scan the image.
The sad part of this is that when I started going through older collages, the ones that decided needed to be recycled or repurposed were usually ones that featured crooked lines. It really does matter in the final composition. When a mat is put around an out of kilter composition, it looks terrible and even cropping it down doesn’t help.