After googling 'collage art blog' I found
Michelle Caplan's blog. Whilst it hasn't been updated recently, I found a couple of
inspiring images that I tried to emulate (above). I did this on the computer using Pages. I made the images of Sophie and Tom black and white, then overlaid them with coloured images at 40% opacity. I assume you can vary the opacity on Windows as well, but I've never tried before and don't have a Windows computer anymore!
Kate and I are collaging this month. Hopefully this will be more successful than our month of felting which didn't work due to a number of reasons, mainly being a combination of the heat (have you tried felting during summer?!), school holidays (both of us have had two kids at home full-time) and we've both been sick. We'll come back to the felted vessels during the year as we definitely haven't finished with them yet.
Our collaging will be very experimental and you'll see our evolution throughout the month. I'm planning on doing a combination of collages both on and off the computer. We're both going to use elements of our own images - whether they be paintings, photos, drawings, writing etc - as well as using images garnered elsewhere - magazines, newspapers, etc. And with Kate's eldest starting school this week and my Tom starting school tomorrow, we should become a lot more productive very soon!
Here is the beginning of my next collage - although I must admit I am still working on my last collage still. I have a leaf-shaped hole punch and I was sharpening it by using foil with it (I don't know how it works but it does) and was amazed by how effective the silver leaves were. Consequently I have stuck silver ones over the green ones on the collage below and will probably feature some on the one above. I have actually painted some silver birch trees on since I took the photo and can't wait to finish it off tomorrow.
I think collages can be quite hard to photograph. I might try again tomorrow in better light but here it is. I had a bit of time today when Hugo was doing some gluing so I thought I should get a bit of a push on. I have used acrylic paint on canvas, felt, buttons, cut up pamphlets and some watercolours that I did a couple of years ago.
This is definitely a work in progress. The paper cut-out trees are only marking where the painted trees will eventually grow. Collage has not been forgotten. It is still just assembling itself.
