Louise's Family Had Deep Literary Roots

This is a departure from the collages I've been posting. It's my first attempt of a layering and glazing technique for background. To create it, layers of torn text were glued down, then, coated with layers of acrylic glazes. After that, a coat of gel medium was brushed on and I scrawled words into. Then, more glazing to help the words pop.

It created a rich, dense background that took about a week to complete. I'm itching to try more of these when I wrap up some other pieces and those gift tags I'm currently obsessed with. The photo is from a vintage family album that fellow collage artist Susan Mahan gave me a while back; the tree is courtesy of a publisher catalog cover. The final layer was a spattering of ink to add a veneer of "dirt" to help the tree blend into the background. 7.5" x 9.5" on acid-free watercolor paper. {SOLD}

Collage on a smaller scale

I took a bit of a break from the larger pieces I was struggling with this week to play around with collages as gift tags. It was instantly gratifying and so much fun that I'm creating a line in a variety of shapes and sizes (these are 2.5" x 5.5" each). Like my full-size collages, each is a one-of-a-kind original made from recycled, vintage and antique papers. That's right, they are not prints or photocopies.

The base tags are trashed manila file folders cut by hand, which allows me to vary the size. Topping them off: vintage Dennison notebook reinforcements (it seems impossible to find cloth ones like these any more, so if you know of a source, please e-mail me) and vintage rayon seam binding. Now, all that's left to do is make more and come up with a clever name for the line!

April

This is the first of the collages on the wrapped canvases I posted last week - and it is one reason I haven't posted anything since Tuesday. I had a lot of trouble with the paper wrinkling atop the initial layer and it ended up taking me two days to finish. Okay, I did a few other things while waiting for the layers to dry and flatten but I became obsessed with making this work.

The head was cut from a book called "Wire" that my studio neighbor, painter Frank Satogata, gave me. Inside it are recycled greeting cards and publisher catalog covers, and a section of a Johnny Jump-Up seed envelope (one of three packs purchased years ago from The Nature Company for the images, not the flowers).  10" x 10" on canvas, with watercolor, acrylic, ink and pencil. [Not For Sale]

The Grand Tour: 7

I came across this engraving of Brazilian natives while mining the 1896 travelogue "Circling the Globe in Stories of Travel" and knew it had to be paired with the fashionable Peterson's magazine women of The Grand Tour series.  It continues the voyeur theme of GT6 and GT8.

Autumn: 1

So, what possessed me to make this collage at this particular time? After all, here it is spring with flowers blooming, trees budding and the seemingly overnight appearance of lush lawns. Well, I was itching to use one of the beautiful plates from a library sale find titled "Autumnal Leaves," as well as a decrepit book spine lining I found intriguing because of the myriad staples lining it. The two were meant for each other. 5" x 10" on archival mat board. [SOLD]