So, it's back to work!

So, I've been back in the studio this week and after cleaning up and reorganizing - well, on a small scale, the bigger clean-up comes mid-February - I started on another eight collages in the Out On A Limb series. They're evolving so fast that these photos - shot on Thursday - are outdated already.

I'm still combining antique & vintage images, as well as black-and-white & color images on each piece. These are being created on box-like boards just like the last five, except that these are birch and are 6" x 6" instead of 5"x5." That may sound like a minor change in size but it is HUGE when it comes to selecting images. I quickly figured out that the vibrant Victorian scraps used in the previous round are too small now.

There are plenty of black-and-white images in my stash that work but I had to look elsewhere for color ones. Luckily, I found more Singer songbird trade cards. I also nabbed a copy of Birds of New York, which was published in 1910 (Vol. 1) and 1914 (Vol. 2) by the New York State Museum. It's beautifully illustrated with painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. I got it for an unbelievably great price but after some research, I discovered that Fuertes was/is world-renowned. Gulp. I may not be able to bring myself to use it.

Happily, I lucked into a shabby copy of the original 1961 edition of Golden Press' Birds of the World for a mere $8 at a used-book sale. The over-sized book is chock-full of vivid paintings by Arthur Singer. But a little more research and what do I find? You got it. Singer is a renowned bird painter, too. Sigh. Stay tuned to see how this plays out ...