New Collage

I had a craft show this past weekend and as I was putting together Collage Inspiration packs to sell, I got inspired myself. Sometimes a handful of elements just fall into place.

Tiny Little Bird

My collage for week 48 is a tiny little bird collage done on a tiny little canvas. The canvas measures 2.5" x 3.5". It's collaged with rubber stamps, a vintage letter, paper from an 19th century French ledger, star tissue paper, and a bit of handmade paper made in India. The bird is a rubber stamp from the set "Birds & Nests" by Cavallini Papers & Co.. They have lots of cool stationery items - check it out here.

Collage week 48

Week 38

I guess I like to work with red because my collage for this week too uses a lot of red elements combined with cream. Bits of vintage documents, handmade papers and a postage stamp all from my box of scraps and a few rubber stamped images finish off the design. I always forget to mention the size. This collage was done on paper and the image measures 6.5" x 4.5".

Collage Week 38

Collage Cube

This week, I did something a little different. A collage in-the-round. I got a wood cube from my local craft store and collaged each side. The theme became vintage type and butterflies and while each side could be it's own collage, they all work together when seen at an angle. I used a variety of vintage type, acrylic paint, rubber stamps, vintage wall paper, music and butterflies. The cube measures 3.5"  and is made from a really light wood (probably Balsa wood). This was so much fun to do (albeit time consuming)  that I will create more of them.

Collage week 35

Tickety Boo

This week's collage uses all sorts of tickets- bus tickets, a theater ticket, a ticket to the flea market, a Chinese ticket, even a vintage ticket for 10 pounds of ice.

Collage week 34

Type as Pattern

I like using type as pattern in my collages. It doesn't matter to me if the type is in a language I can read because what becomes more important than the words, is the pattern the letters make. My collage for week 33 uses a piece from a 19th century French ledger, a Chinese seal, a Russian stamp, a vintage letter and clothing ad, and a bit of music.

Collage week 33

Collage Week 31

My collage for week 31 is done on a cover from a 1970's Reader's Digest Condensed Book. (I have a bunch for these books that were falling apart - a great find at my local Good Will) The pattern on the cover made a nice back ground and I layered it with a striped vintage wallpaper, some hand made papers and a 1937 postage stamp from Newfoundland.

Collage week 31

Prada Pink

While at the mall, I found a discarded Prada Candy perfume tester card. (You know, those little pieces of card that you spray perfume on so you don't have a million scents on your wrist.) This pink, gold and white patterned confection became the basis for my week 30 collage. I combined it with pink and gold handmade papers, rubber stamps and vintage type.

Collage week 30

Jugglin' Bear & Rockin' Croc

I had promised my sister-in-law that I would make some art for my nephew's room. I had previously given a picture to my niece so I had to make good on the promise. I'm not so great at doing boy stuff though. Luckily, my nephew is only 3 and not too critical. I HAD to have the pictures done by the time I drove to Oregon for the 4th of July. I had put it off for a year and the pressure was on.

I did a dancing, juggling bear. I used mostly acrylic paint, along with some hand stamped papers and scrap booking papers I had designed a long time ago. The canvas size was 18" x 24" - bigger than the collages I usually do. I thought it came out quite well.

Jugglin' Bear

Then I got to thinking. The bear might be a little too babyish and would certainly be outgrown in a few years. Three days before I left for Oregon I decided to do a second picture. This time, a rockin' crocodile. Since I was short on time, this one was done almost entirely in acrylic paint, except for the starbursts which were done with an eraser stamp. This too was done on an 18" x 24" canvas. I finished it the evening of July 3.

My nephew seemed to like both of them. Good taste that little boy has!

Rockin' Croc

I almost forgot to post my latest collage! The collage for this week started with a vintage postcard. I added a red rubber stamped wreath (my own design) and layered on Japanese washi papers, a scan of an old book cover, and a vintage bird illustration.

Collage week 29

Collage Update

Since last weekend was a road trip, I didn't get to post my weekly collage, and yesterday I was just lazy. So here are weeks 27 and 28.

The collage for week 27 has a rubber stamp of a fern, a large vintage butterfly, vintage wallpaper, Japanese washi paper and some gold accents.

Collage week 27

The collage for week 28 also has gold accents (Japanese papers and rubber stamps) but I also used vintage music and bits of vintage type. The black and white corners are from an old bookplate.

Collage week 28

Aaargh! Late again. I had the collage done, but no time to scan it. I know, excuses, excuses. My collage for week 26 (half the year has gone by already!) uses vintage ledger paper with vintage wall paper, a Russian rubber stamp, a vintage ad from John Wanamaker & Co , and a piece of an envelope with 3 stamps from India.

For those of you who may not know, Wanamaker's was a Philadelphia based department store (the first) founded in 1869 by John Wanamaker. He later had stores in New York, London and Paris. Wanamaker was also a US Postmaster General under President Benjamin Harrison. The department store no longer exists but is now part of the Macy's chain. You can read more about John Wanamaker here.

Collage week 26

Numbers Game

Numbers are the inspiration for week 25 collage. I started with a background of vintage ledger paper and a lotto ticket (sadly, not a winner). On top is collaged the numbers from one to ten. Some are from type specimen books from House Industries, two are stamps and one is a vintage ticket.

Collage week 25

Red and Yellow (catch a fellow)

Been sick so the collage for week 24 is a tad late. I actually had it done on time but food poisoning makes one not want to work on the computer. This week's collage theme, if I had to pick something, would be red and yellow. Vintage wallpaper, a variety of tickets and rubber stamps made from erasers. It started to get a little out of hand so I had to just stop, and say "done".

Collage week 24

3 Georges

Here is another collage on paper. Week 23 incorporates lots of vintage type, tickets, postage stamps, money and washi tape. All came out of my box (boxes!) of goodies. I seem to have a lot of ephemera in red and cream...I wonder why. My collage is named 3 Georges for the 3 George Washington images on the postage.

Collage week 23

Patterns in Pink

This week, my collage is a little different. I used a selection of hand made papers from my scrap box and combined them with rubber stamping, pen and ink, and a bird cut from letterpress makeready (makeready is the process that gets an image ready to print. I use paper over and over again to get the color and position of the letterpress plates in the correct spot and the patterns and textures that occur can be very interesting). I'm offering this collage as a print in my Etsy shop.

Collage week 22

New Cards

New in my Etsy shop is this letterpress note card. It's one of the illustrations from my 2014 calendar and was printed from my hand cut linoleum block. The image was inspired by the succulents and cacti that I have on the windowsill in my office. The white pot in the back was the inspiration for the middle pot on the card.

New Note Card

Nothing but Trouble

For some reason, the collage for this week gave me a lot of trouble. The first layer I put down was really ugly so I covered it up. I tried a rubber stamp and it smeared so I covered it up. Nothing was coming together. The result is a simple collage. Not a lot of layers or techniques. Just vintage wallpaper, 2 Japanese washi papers, a vintage Japanese match box label, a postage stamp and a Chinese character.

Collage week 21

Yellow Stamps

I just purchased several packs of vintage stamps. There were over 1000 of them and it took  some time to organize by color. Some of my favorites are the yellow and orange ones. My collage for week 20 is done on a 4" x 4" canvas. The background is made up of vintage papers with a bit of white acrylic paint. On top is a piece of marbled paper, a Russian rubber stamps, and 3 of my new vintage postage stamps - the yellow one is from Germany and the other two are from the Netherlands.

Collage week 20

Tiny Butterfly Collage

For week 19, I've done another tiny collage on canvas. It measures just 2.5" x 3.5".  I started with a dark, chocolate brown acrylic paint, layered 3 different hand made papers and rubber stamped in gold ink. I then added a butterfly, some vintage music and my chop in Japanese characters. You would think a tiny collage would be easier than a large one, but they actually can take longer to get the layout just right.

Collage Week 19