Thursday, May 26, 2011

First glance at a collage in the works: En pointe


Last week, I mentioned that instead of trying to document each step of a collage that I might post an image of the first idea, then, circle back with the finished piece to show how it changed from start to finish. Well, here we are with a piece that has the working title: en pointe.

It developed from sorting images for the collage gift tags/bookmarks/whatevers I'm obsessed with these days and for a line of greeting cards I plan to print on my new letterpress, which is almost done being reconditioned. Be still my heart. The dancers were clipped from Victorian trade cards and pasted into a scrapbook, from which they were removed before I got them. I considered putting for tags, then, came across the pointy tools and - voila!

There was a brief moment when a piece titled pointe/counterpointe crossed my mind. In it, the second dancer - at bottom right in the photo - was placed upside down, toe to toe with the first one. But I rejected the idea before it even hit the drawing table. I may come back to it if I find larger images of ballet dancers - these are petite and I felt they needed a more intimate setting.