Gesso to transform magazine pages for collage

After the Storm

After reading a recent post by Martha Marshall about painting magazine pages to use for collage I decided to spend a few hours with my pot of gesso and a few decorating magazines. I ended up with a big stack of interesting paper which, coupled with some of my painted tissue papers, are great fun to use.  I called this one "After the Storm" because it reminds me of dark skies and whirling winds contrasted with blue sky and autumn color breaking through.

I particularly like this method of concealing the images on the original pages and changing them into something that shows my own hand at work, yet takes advantage of the ink colors.

(I'm having trouble with Blogger so I couldn't add the size to the caption... It's 6.5" x 8", matted in an 8x10 mat.)

I've had success with keeping a few different sized mats near my collage table to audition the art I'm making. As I work I view the piece through a mat window and it give me a good sense of what work is still needed or whether I'm finished.

How to Combine Collage with Photographs



Diving Platform at Cove Lake

While working on the Sketchbook Project last year I developed several ways to use my own photographs in my collages. This is one approach.

The little photo is of a stone diving platform in the lake where I swam as a teenager.

I chose papers in colors that echo those in the photo and then tore them to build the collage, using deli paper as my substrate. After trimming it to size I mounted it on board, ready to hang. The photo acts as the focal point in the composition.

Most of the papers are from my stack of hand painted papers. In future posts I'll show you a few other ways I've used photographs.

Bird and Lily Collage

Brown Bird Under Red Lily

6" x 6" (15.3cm x 15.3cm)

collage on paper

$30 with FREE shipping and handling in the US

E-mail me for International shipping rates or other inquiries.

  

It's fun to be back to making whimsical collages. It feels like play.  Making a small collage gets the creative juices flowing and sets me up for other work. It's especially gratifying when I mount them on larger mounting boards, frame them, and see how great they look on the wall.

Saturday my husband helped hang 30 of my sermon notes at church and they look fabulous, though slightly dwarfed by the big building and high ceilings. There are 6 areas where the special hanging system has been installed with just enough space for 5 collage paintings in each area with plenty of room for people to get up close.  I will take pictures soon.

Phone 3211

PHONE 3211

 There's a lot of thinking going on around the One A Day studio. I'm sure that change is coming but where I'll take this blog isn't at all certain. It seems that I am not capable of keeping to a schedule like many of the bloggers I admire... my writing happens when I feel like it, when I have time for it, when I have something to share. 

I'm preparing 30 of my Sermon Notes collage paintings for a solo exhibit at my church. It starts Sunday and will be on the foyer walls until February. I wish you could all come see it, but I will take some pictures and post them here.  The church has invested in a hanging system so that art can be easily hung on the stone walls and we have an enthusiastic art director who will see that more artists have an opportunity to share their work as well as talk about why we work as we do.

Some of my newer collages are 6"x 6", but I'm making other sizes as the subject demands. I'll be offering some of them for sale on this blog. I've experimented with using deli wrap as my substrate, gluing the papers to the surface and trimming the work when I'm done, then mounting the collage on board or heavy papers. Both wet and dry adhesives seem to work well with this backing.  Here are a couple of the newer ones in the Dwelling series.

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