Little Jo in the Garden of Good vs Evil

Little Jo in the Garden of Good vs Evil

5x7

After living the good life as the first child of parents who had all but given up hope for a family my brother arrived and messed up everything. Little Jo's expression says it all... not only did I have to share my parents who spoiled me rotten but I had hold him for a photo even when he didn't smell so good! The expression on her face makes me think that she has a couple of evil thoughts chasing one another around her brain.

I'm having such fun with Little Jo and plan to milk the idea for all it's worth. I printed a bunch of copies of the 2 pictures and cut them out by hand so I have a collection of Little Jo photos in several sizes. I'll scan more photos and do the same so I have a variety of poses from which to choose.

One of the joys of collage is that the artist gets to move color around and change it up at will, and that's true of cut out images, too. These little girl bits take me back to the days of paper dolls who lived in a cigar box along with their clothes, waiting for me to play whenever I wanted.

Using an image such as this provides an immediate and obvious focal point for a collage, an element that's quite easy to overlook but very important to the finished work. It doesn't have to be a person or an animal. It could be a flower, a symbol, an area of strong contrast of light and dark, or simply something that's different than the background.  Like the photographs in my Oregon sketchbook where the contrast was an extension of the landscape which was rendered in pencil or watercolor.  Look at the Slide in my sidebar to see the sketchbook photos to which I'm referring.