Thank you so much for joining me on this trip through my world of collage.

Collage has been a remarkable journey for me, taking me to so many interesting ideas. Collage offers so many possibilities in materials, surfaces, adhesive methods, and artistry.

When I punch holes, I try to use the paper effectively punching in long lines. These strips of paper are the waste product of that process. As they accumulate in the trash bin, my mind started to see collage possibilities.

I was challenged to create a collage using a single source.

Magazine paper is tricky to work with. It is thin and easily saturated with adhesive, getting soggy, ripping and smearing the colour.

Remember the large irregular shapes that I began to tuck into one another in the piece “Green Tangle”?

This piece began with an oceanography map that was given to me by a friend.

Why Circles?
When I began large scale collages, I used a variety of shapes.

As an artist, one piece is often not enough to completely explore an idea.

During the pandemic and isolation, I hear many artists communicate their struggle with lack of inspiration. That’s because social interactions lead to inspirations in Art.

I knew that my large pieces needed a more sturdy backing.

This was the first big piece that I did in colour.

WHAT DOES AN ARTIST DO ALL DAY?

I have always been fascinated by the different qualities of paper; the transparency, the luminosity, the texture, the colour gradations.

Assemblages are collages that are made by assembling disparate elements, often everyday objects.

This piece would be considered in the genre of ‘mixed media’. While it has collage elements in it, the piece also uses paint, sharpies and gel pens.

Seeing is a learned thing.
Artists need to learn to see edges, values and relationships.

As a collage artist, I am looking for connections, finding comparisons and using my full stock of artistic elements.

This small collage is one that I might think of as a “pure collage”. It has no materials other than paper, there is no surface painting or preparation to the surface before collaging.

Collage artists tend to act like squirrels, gathering materials and caching them away for their artwork.