Type Collage Letter A

I've been working on some new designs for my Two Hand Design shop but I did find time to do a new collage. I started with a vintage Reader's Digest book cover and layered on the type - an old receipt, rubber stamps, postage, German money and other bits and pieces.

Type Collage Letter A

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

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

Russian Roulette

My collage for week 16 started with the orange square at the bottom. I saw it in my paper drawer and thought I'd pull out all my orangy papers and see what came together. I am a hoarder of ephemera and all sorts of bits of paper. So out came a font catalog from House Industries (always really cool stuff in there) and on the back was a sample of Neutraface Slab Cyrillic (basically, Russian) in the perfect color scheme. Next I found a wrapper from a chocolate bar that a Russian co-worker had given me. And finally, I used a vintage rubber stamp in cyrillic (no idea what it says) that I purchased from an Etsy seller in Latvia. Rounding it off is a scrap of handmade orange paper, a decorative rubber stamp and the inside of a business envelope (have you ever noticed that business envelopes have a variety of patterns on the inside, some in blue and some in gray, in funny little patterns to thwart thieves?). My Russian Roulette collage is complete!

Collage Week 16

A note about the Russian chocolate bar...the bar is from the Krupskaya chocolate company which was named in honor of Lenin's wife, Nadya Krupskaya. She married Vladimir Lenin in 1898 and from 1929 to 1939 was the deputy minister of education. She died in 1939 and a Leningrad chocolate factory was renamed in her honor. You can read more about her here.

Collage Week 12

I don't know why but I've always liked doing artwork in a square format. My collage for week 12 is done on a 6" x 6" canvas. The background is stamping and acrylic paint. On top is collaged 2 different antique French documents, vintage music, 2 old postage stamps and a tiny bit of a Japanese letter.

Collage Week 12

Collage Week 9

Here's another collage done on a paint sample chip - this time a single color. I used hand carved rubber stamps in the background in different shades of blue. I then used some scraps of decorative paper, another hand stamped piece cut with a scallop circle die, a vintage ticket and parts of a type sample book.

Collage Week 9

Collage Week 8

Here in sunny California, unlike most of the country, we're having warm spring weather. Of course, this does have it's drawbacks. Namely, drought conditions since it's our rainy season and not a cloud in the sky. This in turn means my yard is dead and brown and not springy green. So in response, my collage for week 8 is what my yard should look like - green and leafy.

I started with a paint chip sample card in 4 shades of green. It's combined with rubber stamps, handmade and decorative papers, some vintage music and a piece of an old bookplate. The cut paper vase is embellished with pen and ink and the paint chip is backed with vintage wallpaper and mounted on a heavy weight textured paper.

Collage Week 8

Collage Week Six

I love to collage on vintage bingo cards - they make a great graphic canvas. Like week 5, my collage for week six is another done on a bingo card. I've combined it with a piece of a round playing card, some vintage wallpaper, rubber stamps, type from an antique book cover and piece of an old postcard.

Collage Week 6

Collages - Weeks 3 and 4

Here is the collage for week 3. It was done on a cover from an old Reader's digest and incorporates an antique postcard from Hungary, vintage wall paper, a butterfly print and rubber stamps.

Collage Week 3

Next is the collage for this week - week 4. It was also done on an old Reader's Digest book cover. Other elements include a vintage business card with a Japanese-looking fan, handmade paper and stamp from India, rubber stamps and vintage paper scraps.

Collage Week 4

I think I'm caught up in my weeks. Next week will be week 5 and collage no.5!

Shanghai Girl Collage

My husband went to Chinatown for the day and brought me home a Chinese newspaper. I can't read it but I didn't let it go to waste. It became the background for my most recent collage. I also used a vintage advertising piece featuring a Chinese beauty that I found in New York's Chinatown, a bit of joss paper, a vintage postcard to Shanghai and part of a sandlewood soap (Bee & Flower Brand) wrapper.

Ticket to Ride

This is a collage I made out of new and vintage tickets. It reminded me of putting together a quilt- arranging the type and colors to make an interesting pattern. It's for sale in my new shop.

New Shop

I decided to open another Etsy shop for my collages. They don't really fit in with the letterpress and I also want to keep the vintage shop separate so,  a new shop -Two Hand Gallery.  Here is one of the new collages that is in the shop.

I like how all of the type becomes pattern. I used vintage music and advertising, an old ledger page, and a document from India combined with acrylic paint and hand made papers.

Mother's Day Card

New in the shop is a Mother's Day card I printed using one of the birds from my 2013 calendar. The image is printed in dark pink from my hand cut linoleum block and the type is in chocolate brown.

Valentine Love Birds

This was one of the designs that I was going to use in my 2013 calendar but I ended up with something else for February. I carved it anyway and made note cards, which will be available in my shop. Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day

I have a few new items for Valentine's Day. All are letterpress printed. The "Hello Love" card was done with my collection of wood type and the "Owl Love" from hand cut linoleum blocks. They're available in my shop here.

2013 Calendar

I finished my 2013 calendar a few weeks ago but it took me awhile to photograph it. All of the images are letterpress printed from my hand-cut linoleum blocks. This is the fourth year that I've done this style of calendar-I wonder how many more images I'll be able to think up!

The calendar is now available in my Etsy shop

Tea in the Garden

At one of my craft shows, I was approached by a woman who commissioned me to do a tea party collage for her daughter's birthday party. She backed out after I had completed it so, I gave it to a very special little girl-my niece-whose family has just moved into their first house. It's now in her brand new bedroom.

The collage combines acrylic paint and handmade papers on canvas. It's the largest thing I've done at 16" x 20". The quote is from a song by Raffi.

New Artwork

I've been working on some new collages and am quite pleased with the way these 2 came out. These are collages on canvas using acrylic paint, handmade papers and miscellaneous vintage ephemera.

Craft Show Product

Since my first craft show of the year (Patchwork Long Beach) is this coming Sunday, I thought I'd make some items using my new collages. I've done 6 different note cards, and a few decorated Moleskines with matching bookmarks which will be sold as a set. If they do well at the show, they'll debut in my Etsy shop in a few weeks.

Card Designs

My cards come from all sorts of inspirations but the following designs were inspired by mid-century fabrics.

I created my leaf card (on the right) after seeing this Scandinavian influenced 1960's bark cloth. (on the left)

I did this one (pink birdie on the right) after seeing a fabric by designer Lucienne Day (on the left) that dates from the 1950's. What inspired me was the rectangular shapes and the line art going through them and what evolved was this bird and flowers. The following are two books from my collection, each with great mid-century reference.

"Fabulous Fabrics of the 50s (And Other Terrific Textiles of the 20s, 30s, and 40s)" by Gideon Bosker, Michele Mancini and John Gramstad was published in 1992 by Chronicle Books. "1950s Fashion Print" by Marnie Fogg was published by Batsford in 2010