Paper Collage

I have a square collage book that I work in occasionally. I don't try to finish a page right away. I find it better to return after a few weeks, with a fresh eye. I had collected these two images on different magazine tearing days. I pasted them onto the page and used my black brush pen to outline the angel. I added a photocopied map of Rome. And Sunday I added black gesso. This is the first time I have gone in and painted over things with a covering coat of paint. It is liberating. I can remove, obscure, obliterate the things I don't like.

Unlike ALL OTHER collage artists, I don't start with background. I try. I really try. I have forced myself to create the backgrounds of several small fabric collages FIRST and them add the focus details. It does not come naturally. It should. But my art education was in the mid sixties when we were told to do "whatever" and given no instructions on technique. Yes, we learned the elements of design in the history of fine art classes. But NO applied art instructions. Here's the list of supplies, here's the room in which you will paint and here's the requirement of 8 finished works by this deadline. Perhaps the professors were stoned. Who knows. I did get A's on my first year's watercolors. And I did well with my paintings in acrylic (I was the only one in oil class using acrylics), so the bad work habits were reinforced with good grades. I can safely say my work was very different from all the others. And that was the ONLY thing it had going for it.

My intaglio professor thought my work was incredible. I tried everything in intaglio except the acid baths. I hadn't paid attention to the rules in the early classes and was hesitant to ask for clarification. I was taking 300 and 400 level print classes and it would have seemed very odd to not have a clue on how the acid baths worked. So I did mezzotint by hand and sandblasting. A crew was sandblasting a building in town and I took a zinc plate over and asked them to hit it with some sand. Gently. Interesting. I loved the printed, etched line. Still do.

On this, the first day of my "vacation" from work, I am considering how I will spend my time. I work best with a looming deadline so I need to have a list of projects I want to complete. And a chart. I like having a chart with segments to cross off as they are completed.

So far, I have dusted the top of my bedroom dresser with a wool sock on it's way to the laundry.

My new Big Lots bowl is most excellent for making oatmeal. Fantastic!