Artists of the Month

Nancy and I with our collage wall.

My Collage Wall

My friend and mentor, Nancy and I were asked to be artists of the month at our local art league. She taught me the heat sealed (John Talbot) method of collage and then we taught it to interested students. The most fun of the class is not that the collages are heat sealed but in all the different ways that we make our own collage papers. We use a lot of old National Geographic magazines because of the quality of the ink and paper. We hit these colorful photos with various chemicals, sandpaper, paint, ink, whatever we can find. We also paint our own papers from craft tissue, paper bags, maps, book pages, music, wrapping paper, etc so that each collage is unique and can't be copied. Our students become so free and creative we learn from them too. 

Our work will be hanging in the studio for the month of April.   

Hope of Spring

Collage, 8 X 8

It maybe looks wintery, but it's that period of time in the snow belt when most of the snow is gone, there are signs of life and color but the trees are still bare. Some  are going through that right now and some places the blossoms have already opened. I saw the cherry blossoms in Washington D. C. on television and they looked glorious! We have spring in Florida, too, we even have bare trees! The weather is warm and dry and there are certain trees that blossom only this time of year. My early mango has set fruit that are the size of large walnuts. 

This piece was made from faded tissue, tissue with script, painted paper with marbling spray, printed paper and an acrylic transfer. All papers are coated with polymer gloss medium and heat sealed to a paper backing. It's coated with UV varnish.