Collage Plus Photography

Daily Collages:

I've been posting recent daily collages over on Instagram. Hop on over there and follow me if you wish. 

In last week's series I worked on 7 1/2" watercolor paper* starting with a tiny photograph from a grouping I printed at a drugstore where you can print several shots on one print.  I drew a loose grid on the paper, glued a photo where I wanted the center of interest, and proceeded to extend the content of the photograph outwards from there.

This is similar to the photo I chose for "Running Toward Home", a herd of horses in a pasture at SunRiver, Oregon.  And here is the finished collage:
 

TEARING 7 1/2" SQUARES":Watercolor paper in either 140# or 300# weight is a favorite substrate for my collages. It comes in sheets that measure 21+" x 30". This size can be folded or measured and torn into 7 1/2" squares with no waste. I keep a stack of these squares on hand. 

Here's how I get 12 squares out of one sheet of 22 x 30" paper with no waste...

• Fold in half along the 30" length and tear or cut along the fold, yielding 2 pieces that are 22 x 15. 
• Fold each in half and cut along the fold. You'll now have four strips measuring roughly 22 x 7 1/2.
• Now take each of these strips and measure and mark 7 1/2" and cut off this square.
• Fold the remaining strip in half and cut along the fold giving you two more 7 1/2" squares of paper. 
• I know 22 doesn't divide evenly by 3 but for my purposes, it's good enough to fudge a bit.
• Repeat with all the paper strips and you'll end up with 12 rough-cut squares.

Naming artworks

Tree and Shadow

This painting needs a name. Will you help name it, please?

Titles....
Perhaps my way of finding titles will help you. I keep a dedicated journal on my desk that's just for titles and quotations. Whenever I find a title I like, into the book it goes. I find titles everywhere, just not when I'm in the midst of painting. So where do I find titles?

• Gallery shows. 
• Plant catalogs. (This is where I found the title, Red Hot Mama.)
• Song titles and musical terms.
• Thesaurus and the dictionary.
• Book or chapter titles.
• Phrases taken from my Bible or other books.
• Online galleries and websites.
• Note the titles other artists use for their works. Titles aren't protected by copyright and this is one place I "steal like an artist". I've yet to use a title that I don't change somehow but I know the day will come and I don't call that dishonest, and I hereby give you permission to copy my titles.

How do you title your own work?

Shadow photos....
Photos of my shadow are my version of selfies and lately I've been incorporating the shadow photos in my collages, sometimes directly by gluing the photo into the composition or like this one, printed onto a paper that I intend to use in the collage.

With the proper printer setting one can print on just about anything that will feed through the printer. I've printed text onto photographs, photographs onto painted paper, and in this case I printed a photo onto a magazine page that I had manipulated with solvent. Try it yourself.

I've learned....

• Inkjet printers don't work well for this technique. Use a laser printer or toner copier, set to black/white. Printing in color should work if you have a color laser printer. I haven't tried it since I don't have one.
• Lessen the contrast so that the black of the ink doesn't obscure the paper. Or...
• If you want a silhouette with strong black, then increase the black in your camera software.
• Experiment to see what you can do.

It's all about process....
Of course much of this would be easier done digitally in your computer program, i.e. Photoshop, but I am a tactile person and I have to have my hands on the paper, the scissors, and get my fingers covered with glue. Otherwise I don't feel like I've made art. The more of me I can get into the work the better I like the process.

Machine Works and Painting

Machine Work and Painting

This piece named itself. 

For years I've carried a camera wherever I go and have thousands of photos of people, places, and things. And I've been trying to figure out how to combine my love of photography and my love of collage without the result looking like a scrapbook page. Perhaps I'm finally onto something that will work for me. 

This started with the photo of a warehouse stencil, Machine Work and Painting. I added maps, an old car, a collection of hands taken in a favorite store, a machine part from who knows where, and a row of big steel tubes, plus bright color, black and white, painted paper, and the drawn line.  All combined on a 12x12" board.

The best thing about this for me is that this piece pulled me up out of a fallow time when I simply didn't want to work. I've been sewing and gardening, cooking and reading, but no drawing, no painting, no collage. It was starting to bother me even though I knew it was all related to hanging the show in Hillsboro and needing a new focus.  This idea came at just the right time, thank you, Jesus.

I've been accepted into the Portland Open Studios Tour the second and third weekend in October and now that I have a new idea and a new goal of making new work for the tour I'm ready to spend lots of days in the studio. A dear friend gifted me with several dozen cradled panels and another friend cut me lots of flat panels so I know what sizes and surfaces I'll be working on. The next step is to dig out a bunch of photos from the boxes stacked in the corner and see what works with what.

I spent a lot of time in Hong Kong in the 80s and photos from those trips will make some interesting collages, as will photos from various road trips and vacations.

Watch this space for new work! I'm on a roll.

Sunny Day at the Beach

Sunny Day at the Beach

Jo Reimer

Collage on board

12” x 12”

I'm experimenting with new ways to add images to my collages, this time using my own photographs. 

It proved to be quite simple. In Photoshop I went to Image>Mode>Grayscale and increased the contrast via Adjustments. Then I sent the image through my Laserjet, and cut it out close to the edges of the image.

The next experiments with be image transfers using acrylic medium which is a technique I used 20 years ago to transfer photos to fabric. What goes around comes around, doesn't it?

Autumn Colors

 

 

At the tag end of autumn there's a whole different set of colors than those I noticed a month ago. The 'Bloodgood' Japanese Maple in the front bed with its bright red leaves suggests Christmas is just around the corner and the lichen on the vine maple at the front steps is a light but muted sage green. It's all about contrast, just waiting for me to notice. I see so much color here and while I'd love to have the painting skills to render a likeness, I can't, and why would I want to when a photograph captures the moment so well. Perhaps by using these colors from nature and the lines of the trees I could form an abstract collage. If I manage something I'll show you. 

Gratitude

by Jo Reimer

 

I watched Louis Schwartzberg's TedTalk  about Gratitude yesterday with all his wonderful time lapse photos of the majesty and intricacy of nature and can't help but be filled with gratitude to the One who created it all.

 

 

Our Western Oregon landscape is so lush and beautiful at this time of year with the hot colors of the turning leaves and fall blooming plants. Even the dead leaves are leaving their eco prints on the concrete sidewalks. Once again I am in awe of the beauty around me and I recalled a page in a 2009 journal so I dug it out to share with you. I hope each of you has a wonderful weekend and are mindful of the beauty around you and of all we have to be thankful for.

 

 

Thank You

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.

I Was There - Self Portrait Shadows

Amy and Grandma Jo in Hawaii

It used to be that after a trip I'd take our photos to be developed and be so disappointed that once again there were no pictures of me, as if I didn't exist except behind the camera. Then I started insisting that someone take a picture of me, but those, being less than candid, were never very interesting. 

Small town in Idaho

Fast forward to a few years ago when I was walking down a street early one morning when the shadows were long; there at my feet was my shadow self... so I took my picture. Now I look for opportunities to take shadow self portraits  wherever I go. 

Phoenix, AZ

There are no rules about taking shadow self portraits except that you need some sun and you need to make the picture quite early in the morning or late in the day when the sun is low to the horizon so that shadows are cast. The only time when I can't get a shadow picture is when the sun is directly overhead. The higher the sun the shorter the shadow.

At the beach

Most of the time I don't use the viewfinder on the camera but rather I use the LCD monitor in order to camouflage the camera itself in the resulting photo. The newest point and shoot cameras don't even have a viewfinder.

Cannon Beach

Move around until your shadow is where you want it. It's interesting if you can arrange to have something in the background that gives a hint about where you were.  And be prepared for a distorted body. You'll look like you've put on several unwanted pounds because of the angle and the clothing you're wearing. This is not the time for vanity to rear its ugly head.

I'm sure you can figure out time of day by the length of the shadow.

La Conner, WA Tulip Fields

Fiesta San Antonio

 

Jo was in San Antonio

I suppose I should insert some mariachi music here to set the tone for this post... we've just spent a joyful week in San Antonio visiting old friends and going to some Fiesta events. Let me tell you that traveling from Oregon to South Texas is a shock to the system. The day before we left the temperature at home was 37 and it snowed briefly in my back yard; when we arrived in SA the temperature was a sunny 94 degrees. Believe me, I said a prayer of thanks for air conditioning in the car and in the house. 

What's with the shadow photo, you ask? Sometimes we get home without a single picture of me in our stack of vacation pictures so I've started taking in-situ shadow photos to prove that I really was along for the ride.

Tree moss, similar to Spanish Moss



San Antonio Library



Making Photographs

I've loved taking photographs since school days and though I don't call myself a photographer I own a huge box of old cameras and use two, a pocket-sized Canon PowerShot SD700IS for note-taking and a Canon Rebel XTI. I carefully take photographs as a means of remembering and as a form of sketching when I don't have time to stop and draw. Through years behind the viewfinder I've developed an eye for composition that's translating in a strong way to my collages and paintings. I've learned to frame images... to avoid placing the focus smack dab in the middle of the frame, to let the images touch the edges of the frame and feather off, to balance objects even if it means that I lose some of the actual elements of the scene, and I've learned to shoot photos that will transpose into paintings or at least inform future paintings as far as color, composition, pose, and so on.

at the Alamo

We visited two of the five missions, Mission San Jose and the Alamo.  San Jose was unusual to me because the only others I've seen were in California and this was quite different with its walls enclosing several acres of open courtyard. Rooms were built into the walls making them tall and difficult to penetrate.  On the other hand the Alamo had low walls and wasn't so easy to defend.  No one forgets the Alamo and the great loss of life there and in 1891 a group of women organized the parade called Battle of Flowers to honor the heros of the Alamo, now called Fiesta.

Mr. Bull

We attended a Lutheran church service where Fiesta Princesses in colorful gowns with long trains made a processional down the aisle to a mariachi band, with a silent auction and raffle and picnic in the parking lot. I won a Kindle in the raffle and a metal sculpture of a Texas longhorn bull in the silent auction. Anyone want to buy a bargain Kindle? You can't have Mr. Bull.

Riverwalk is a central SA destination... it's a place where the San Antonio river makes a big loop in the downtown, its route directed by manmade concrete walls and locks to control the waterflow. Riverwalk is where you eat in center city... lined with dozens of restaurants on 3 levels, all with open air dining. We enjoyed lunch there one day and dinner the next at the famed Fiesta River Parade of lighted boats filled with local dignitaries. We were guests of people who had reserved riverside seating.

My husband and I both have a thing for trees... he grows them in our tree nursery and I draw and photograph them.. and we love to visit botanical gardens wherever we travel. The one in San Antonio is quite wonderful, almost too much to see in one visit. One section of the garden replicates a bit of the Hill Country with its rolling terrain and plants.



Farmhouse at San Antonio Botanical Gardens



Texas Bluebonnets

Apparantly one doesn't go to south Texas without visiting the Hill Country and we went, too, hoping to see fields of Texas Bluebonnets, a member of the lupine family of flowers. We saw a few, mostly in patches beside the road, but no fields of blue because of the severe drought.

Live oak trees at Lukenbach, Texas post office

But I was taken aback by the beauty of the live oak trees that cover the hillsides and grow in most yards. The trees are quite contorted and the older ones are majestic.

LaFonda hostess



And on our last day we had lunch on the patio at La Fonda, an excellent Mexican restaurant where the surroundings were gorgeous and the hostess was lovely.

Yes, I was there, too.

Starting a Series

Maudeline

5x7 daily collage

Maudeline Patterson was my home economics teacher in middle school and high school. She recognized my creative abilities early on and helped me learn whatever I needed, especially in sewing class. Miss Patterson was no fashion plate but she was interested in helping her students realize their fashion dreams. The only comment I remember disagreeing with her about was... "Martha, chartruese green and navy simply don't go together".

SERIES

With my daily collages I'm turning toward home and homemaking as a series theme, at least for awhile. Although many artists have used the house shape in their art I will try not to look at too many pieces by others and simply see what I can do with a square or rectangle and a triangle. Maybe I can burn through my scrap paper backlog.

I've come to believe that working in series is the way to go. It narrows my focus and keeps me from jumping around so much. I have several series going and I jump around from one to another... home, trees, the garden, spiritual relationships and family are currents interests. 

FOCUS

It's hard for me to focus on just one theme.  One day I feel like doing something about "home" and the very next day I'm ready to draw some trees.  I know, they are all interrelated. And the truth of it is that I'm free to play around with any topic/theme that strikes my fancy, but more gets done when I focus on one or two topics at a time.

My friend Jane Dunnewold addresses the topic of focus in her December 1, 2010 blog post at Existential Neighborhood.  I'm so glad I read it.

Jane reminds me that I don't have to make a decision to do anything forever. I can build paper houses for a month. The next month I can play with circles. I know that my attention wanes at around 6 months. If I take that in consideration when I set my goals I can motivate myself to keep on keeping on with promises such as "if you work on building houses for the next 4 months then you get to paint flowers."  With a single focus I can dig deeper.

LIGHT

LK Ludwig is posting weekly holiday prompts on her blog The Poetic Eye this month with the theme of LIGHT. I urge you to read her post.

Light of the World will be my own theme. I'm already behind because my work day is almost over and I haven't started... but my plan is to make a journal that's devoted to the topic and finish a photo journal page most days during December, using my own photographs, of course.  That's do-able. And focusing on just this one thing leaves me room to enjoy this month of light, including a few minutes for my little daily collage.

The Sketchbook Project - Central Oregon

It seems like more than 2 weeks since I last posted and I'm pushing myself to get at least one post written this weekend. This is Central Oregon, high desert country that's surrounded by mountains and topped with blue sky, a land of lakes and rivers, fields of crops, and wildlife of all kinds.  My intention for next week is to finish this Sketchbook Project.

  

My visits with family and old friends was SO good. While in Dallas my cousins and I went to the Dallas Aboretom and were amazed by the unique uses of squash and pumpkins in the Storybook Pumpkin Village. It was an orange colored vacation.

Everywhere I turned there was orange... trees, pumpkins, and the orange shirts of tens of thousands of Oklahoma State Cowboys. It was a blast to go back for homecoming and visit with college friends. We stayed with my friend from long ago and talked a bit of old times but mostly about who we are today.

In Arkansas we ate barbeque at my favorite place and in my home town we went to Pop's Pond and got in some target practice...

                                           

It was nice to see that I can still hit my target with my dad's old 22.

Quick sketch done at the local airport while my brother worked on his Ultralight, the one that broke a wheel off during an unscheduled landing.

And yes, I did do some sketching here and there. But I find it hard to make art when I'm with people; I need solitude to concentrate on drawing and I preferred to talk with those I love rather than mess with art making. I have plenty of time for that but never enough time for faraway family. However, I took lots of photos to remind me of happy times.

Jim entering his shed

Pondering the Possibilities

When I was a child in a small town in Arkansas my phone number was 255. That's it. Three little numbers. Then it became 3255, and eventually 501-6__-3255. Progress, I guess. Now I look for those numbers and photograph them when I find them. I also photograph other numbers that are the same as phone numbers or house numbers of the homes in which I've lived.  7770. 2420. 1073. 643. Like that. Someday I'll use them in a journal that's all about HOME.

I'll get to see my home in Arkansas next week when I visit my brother. Family no longer lives there but it's like a pilgramage for me when I return to my home town, a time for remembering the people and events that shaped my life and to give thanks to God for them.  Do you ever do that? Or is it only me because I'm so far away and returning happens infrequently.

If there are numbers on the house I'll take a picture.

We recently spent a couple of days at the beach and hit the weather just right. I set up a card table on the deck and worked in the sun on my journal.

Below is an industrial building in Portland that the owners have painted with consideration to their across the street neighbors. The colors give me ideas for a painting or a collage.

I'll be traveling for the next couple of weeks and will probably ignore blogging. If you've subscribed you'll know when I'm back. My intention as I travel is to capture lots of pictures of houses and trees because I want to focus on those subjects for awile in my journals, paintings, sketchbooks, and daily collages. Maybe telling you about it will make me accountable.

The Sketchbook Project - Forests

FORESTS

This is one of those shots taken from the passenger seat of my car, driving down the highway at 60 miles an hour. Surprisingly the shot turned out okay, at least for the Sketchbook Project. I cut it in two to fit across the spread and then extended the lines and colors, with a little insert taken within one of the coast range forests.

                              

Ecola State Park - The Sketchbook Project

For this next spread I chose a photo taken from Ecola State Park.

After attaching the photo to the page with a tape runner (double-stick tape) I extended the scene using Derwent Inktense pencils, Caron d'Ache watercolor crayons, and ink.

Then I used plain water and a soft brush to moisten the marks and blend the colors.

The Sketchbook Project -Gray Days

I'm participating in The Sketchbook Project (click on the icon in the sidebar to read more.) and have been mulling around ideas about how I want to proceed. The papers in this 5" x 8 1/4" Moleskine are so thin that actually drawing on them as they are is out of the question as far as I'm concerned and there's not a great deal of time left in the year to draw on every single page. So. I decided to follow Marge Malwitz's lead and glue some of the pages together to create fewer, thicker pages.

What glue to use is the big issue with lots of the people who are working on this project. At MakenArt there's a long post about which glues and pens work best but I didn't read it until I had already experimented with gel medium, YES! paste, and a UHU gluestick, resulting in some badly wrinkled pages. I'm not worrying about that because I'll be making collages on the pages.

I find it so intersting to follow Marge's Creative Process that I decided I'll document my own process for you.  The title I chose from those available is "If you lived here". I'm enlarging the title to "If You Lived Here... Oregon". I'll use my own photos of various places I've been recently in Oregon and extend the photos with drawing and journaling since that's what I do.

My first 2 pages have to do with people's idea that it always rains and is cloudy and gray here in Oregon. It doesn't rain all the time. In fact the rain this week is the first we've had in Portland in 2 dry months. But one CAN count on bits of most days at the coast being overcast.

I happened to have the perfect sheet of gray washi so I cut that to fit and used 3M's 77 spray adhesive to glue it to the page, along with bits of blue washi to indicate the promise of blue skies.

The text under the pictures reads

Some say

it's always gray

here at the western edge

of the USA.

Often - yes, with a gentle mist.

But not always...

See there...

a hint of blue.

Circles and Valentine

Three Circles

5x7

I'm still working on my daily collage project, using whatever is in my red basket of scraps. The little guy peeking from behind the blue paper is from an old Hallmark calendar and the strip of circles is waste from punching out some circles.

Be My Valentine

5x7"

This is a picture of me and my friend Cliff at a fraternity party taken on February 14, 1958. Yes, I used the actual picture; none of my offspring will want it when I have a picture of my DH and myself in the same pose. I went to the party with Gerald who is now my husband, but Cliff wanted a picture of us together. Don't we look young! We were both 19.

Make art with what you have. It need not cost much money; just make use of what you have. Mother was fond of saying "waste not; want not" and I try to remember that, especially in these difficult times.

Birds - Seagulls - Journal Pages

Here are more pages in my Black Journal, these combining some of my photos with other sources (the birds on a wire and the 3 vertical birds aren't my own photos).

I used 3M Spray 77 to glue the photos to the black gessoed pages. I like this glue a lot for some purposes, especially for journal pages, though I isn't as permanent as I like for stand-alone collages. 

My setup for using this spray glue includes a large flat plastic bin with a lid, a magazine and the spray can. I lay my paper face down in the bin, take off my glasses and put them under something so no drop of glue touches the plastic lens (it doesn't want to come off once stuck to the glasses), and give the back of the image a quick spray. Working quickly, I lift it out of the box, close the lid, and put it in place in my journal. 

Why all the care? It's a SPRAY and it likes to float around the room, landing on all surfaces and leaving a tacky mess behind. By quickly closing the lid I allow very little spray to escape the box; it harmlessly coats the inside of the bin. When the magazine page gets too sticky I turn the page and have a fresh, non-tacky surface to lay my work on.