At the start of the first session, Karen showed us how she sticks a variety of collage materials and textures on the page with no preconceptions about what the final picture might be. once this layer is dry she soaks the paper with water and drops in acrylic inks, allowing them to spread and swirl on the paper and find their way among and around the textures. Some of it is helped on it's way with more water from a spray bottle then the whole thing must be left to dry naturally for the colours and textures to mingle and settle where they like. At the end of this first session I had a large sheet of paper covered in collage and random blobs of colour. I couldn't see how it was ever going to be a picture of anything!
Over the next few days I looked and looked at the board and eventually saw an area that looked a bit like a stream of water and some foliage. From this small beginning, over the next three workshop sessions, Karen helped me to 'reveal' the picture within - adding more colour, taking away areas by covering with tissue or gesso and using a multitude of different tools including sticks, straws, feathers, bits of card etc to build the image.
I am pleased with the result and even now I look back at the starting point and I'm amazed at where it came from.