rantin' and raven

the current prompt at collage obsession is "RAVEN" which is appropriately cool and seasonal, don't you think? for some reason i had a hard time with it, though. partly because i had too many ideas; which is not something i like to complain about, but in this case a lack of focus hindered me. luckily, in the midst my dithering period, i slammed my thumb in the storm door!* i don't mean "luckily" in the traditional sense, because it really hurt quite a lot; but in the midst of the epic moan which ensued, the phrase "rantin' and raven" popped into my head and after that my collage came together quite easily!

fairly often i make a random paper collage as a background for a more traditional focal point, but this time i swapped that around, and i really like how it came out. i confess to "cheating" a bit... my original version of the raven had fewer papers, and they were not ideally spaced, so after cutting him out i strategically tore and glued on a few more. the "rant" was typed on a cool old accounting ledger card i got at a garage sale, using my vintage typewriter. it's kind of more a moan than a rant-- i just typed a whole bunch of stupid, trivial things that were bugging me, until i had filled enough space to hold the raven. as a bonus, i actually felt a lot happier after i was done complaining, lol.

check out the readers' gallery at collage obsession, there are some beautiful (much more traditional!) takes on the halloween and gothic theme there! ♥

*which... ok, yeah, i am most definitely a figure of some repute amongst klutzes, but still... HOW do you even do that??! even my lovely husband, in the midst of his sympathy, couldn't help but question the logistics of such a move. arrgh.

ORANGE you glad i didn't say banana? :)

sorry, i don't know why the famous banana knock-knock joke has been stuck in my head since i read that this week's theme at collage obsession is orange... but it is... hence the title; sorry if i got it stuck in your head now, too. you could use this to knock it out, but then you'd have minions singing ersatz beach boys harmonies in your head for all eternity. which is not necessarily a bad thing, is it?*

ok, so, on to the collage: my new motto is, "when you don't know what to do, do it really REALLY enthusiastically!" so i have. see?

giant orange dahlia trimmed from an old calendar; ed hardy bird stencil cut from a hindi magazine page; gothic arch made of basic grey "solid" paper, decorated with flower mandalas and swirls using faber castell pitt pens (S and XS) and a white gelly roll on top; later i popped it onto a sheet of copier paper and trimmed around it with deco scissors because the two orange shades matched so well you couldn't really see the arch enough. (b/c YEAH, that's how scientific my collage process is, lol!)

yeah. it's verrrrrrrrrrrrry orange! this is one of those times that i love every single ingredient, but i'm not sure they really gel together terribly well as a collage. i absolutely loved drawing the mandala doodles, though, so i'm calling this a win for process, if not outcome. which totally works for me! check out the awesome orange readers' gallery at collage obsession, won't you? ♥

*if you answered "yes" to that question, then for pete's sake DON'T click the link b/c seriously the minions are the most powerful earworm in the history of song. worse than "the name game" even... which up until now i didn't think was possible!

yet another thing to love about dina wakley...

...is her amazing skill as a teacher. if you ever get a chance to take one of her classes, GO! you will not be sorry, i promise. i've actually been lucky enough to do so twice, the most recent being last month when the lovely sandi taloumis and i met up in new york to spend the day at the ink pad's teaching annex with the divine dina and about 20 other awesome artsy ladies. the most important thing to know is that dina is as ♥FUN♥ and funny as she is talented-- which is definitely saying something!-- so you might be enjoying yourself so much you don't really notice that she also has a proper lesson plan, a bunch of tasks for you to try, a LOT of cool knowledge to impart, and the professionalism to it make all work in the allotted time without ever calling attention to the fact that you're not all just blissfully and aimlessly playing around. it's very impressive!

one of my favorite things we learned is a technique dina calls "trace face" in which each member of the class created a unique portrait using the same photocopied face and... wouldja believe... carbon paper of all things! you would think such an experiment would result in two dozen pictures that looked exactly the same, but NO, every single one was different and amazing! i've been playing around with this method ever since; most recently i've used it on top of a background of somewhat randomly glued vintage paper bit that i created for the "diva" theme at collage obsession:

collage made of cut and torn vintage paper bits from my stash; stencils: heidi swapp, ranger, julie balzer; stamps: dina wakley, glitz design; inks: ranger archival and distress in various colors plus colorbox chalk inks for facial features; other: black stabilo pencil, staples brand carbon paper

here it is again, alongside the vintage vogue magazine model i used as my tracing image; i have to say i feel like i didn't do well on the mouth, but otherwise i'm pretty happy with this one:

meanwhile, here is my face from class, which i also really love. i should probably mention that the darkest lines on all of these pages are made using my new favorite tool, a black stabilo pencil smudged lightly with a wet paint brush, the results are soooooooooo cool!

as it turns out, you can use this technique with ANY image, it doesn't have to be a face. a couple of weeks ago, i traced an avian friend from a vintage bird book on top of a random painty background i made in class and it turned out well enough that i made it into a card for my mom:

so to sum up: if you ever happen to see the words "dina wakley" and "teaching a class near you"... drop everything and go sign up immediately. you can thank me later, darlings! :)

stapled AND sewn?!

question: when is it acceptable to "break the rules" in collage?

answer: sorry, that was a trick question; there really aren't any rules in collage!

ok, yes, there are rules of composition, color-combining changes everying, balance is important, etc, etc; but to me the bottom line is: if *YOU* like what you've made, then don't worry about anything else!

case in point, i set out to make a stapled collage, specifically as a reminder that the giveaway of the awesome daisy yellow zine (issue #11, in which my "stapled collage" article appears) ends tonight, and you should comment on the original post right here to be included.

i saw that this week's prompt was "books" at the take a word challenge, and got right to work finding first the utterly swoon-worthy harlequin romance book cover (!) and then quite a few other book pages and book-related items to go with it. and i set everything up in layers that could be stapled together at just a few points, because i was making a stapled collage.

but then, at the end, i decided it really really needed some sewing, too. so i sewed, too! because who's to say that a stapled collage can't also have sewing, eh? certainly not our heroine, miss destiny, who remained silent-but-beautiful throughout the entire process. which pretty much proves my point, i think, don't you?! :)

and now i hope you'll scroll down and enter the daisy yellow zine giveaway, because i know you will LOVE that thing as much as i do... soooooo many cool ideas from miss tammy within! then head on over to take a word and check out all the cool artwork made for the "books" prompt! ♥

a is for "ATC" and "ARTICLE" and A giveAwAy, also! :)

ETA friday morning: sorry to re-post but i was soooooo excited that i accidentally published this without waiting for the gorgeous zine pics from tammy! duh, lauren! :) 

i'm happy to be playing along with collage obsession again, after a couple of weeks away.  this time the prompt is, "a is for..." and we get to complete the phrase. meanwhile, the other super-cool thing that happened this week is the new daisy yellow zine (issue #11)* was published, inside of which is an article miss tammy commissioned me to write about my favorite technique, stapled collage! could i BE more excited?! (ummm... NO!!!) :) :) :)

ok, first here's my entry for collage obsession. i decided to see how many A's i could fit into a 2.5 x 3.5" space. so we've got ATC, alphabets (english and chinese!), acrylic, alligator-in-an-airplane (obviously!), agapanthus (the purple flower which kinda looks like fireworks) and in the very back, a bit of aqua atlas. i'm pretty sure you'd have to attend an art show on sesame street** to see more A's in one place, and except for the background, it's all held together with one staple. gosh, i looooove doin' that!

now let's talk ♥GIVEAWAY♥! the lovely tammy has generously given me two copies of the brand-spankin'-new daisy yellow zine to give away!

the gorgeous table of contents for issue #11 of the daisy yellow zine, courtesy of miss tammy

what's inside? well, in addition to the stapled collage article*** by yours truly, there are eighteen incredibly beautiful, color-saturated pages of inspiring content to fuel your art-making imagination, including art journal prompts, brilliant ideas for unfinished journals (b/c we ALL have those, am i right?) thoughts on flash fiction (which i totally want to try now!) index card love, good creative habits, tips, techniques, and of course it's all illustrated in tammy's lusciously beautiful, colorful style. truly a feast for the eyes and a jump-start for the mind! i'll choose two winners randomly from the comments on this post at midnight, wednesday, may 28th, and post the names next thursday! sound good?

excerpt of one of the articles from daisy yellow zine, issue #11, courtesy of missy tammy and also the guest contributor... hey wait!  that's ME!!! :) :) :)

now i just need to remind you to check out collage obsession AND the daisy yellow art blog. good thing we've got a long weekend coming up, because you're definitely going to need some extra creative time to use all the fab ideas you'll acquire there! ciao, darlings! ♥

*issue#11 of the daisy yellow zine is available in .pdf format in the daisy yellow etsy shop for $8.00; there's more information on this post at the daisy yellow art blog!

**or this week's gallery at collage obsession, for that matter! 

***for which i made two brand new stapled collages i'm pretty danged proud of. just sayin'... :)

swapping heads? sign me up!

that's the fun and funky challenge at collage obsession this week. it's a branch of collage i always enjoy seeing, but somehow have never really attempted, so i was keen to have a go. here's what i made:

i have to tell you this was *HARDER* than i thought! turns out, it's actually not all that difficult (with a little trial and error) to find images of inter-species heads that mesh pretty well with the body you've selected. the problem is logistics; at least, it is if you also want to use the background any of your characters are in. which i did, obviously, since it had that awesome circus poster! keeping the background means that heads not only have to be "compatible", but also, the new head has to be big enough to completely cover the old one. so my first idea of having this boy with the wagon turn into a slim-necked giraffe just didn't work at all. sadly, i didn't think to photograph the illustration before making the collage (i never do, alas!) but here's a similar shot of the same kid from the title page:

the thing i liked most about him-- that he was turning his head to check out the poster-- was the thing that thwarted the giraffe plan. which, as it turns out, was kind of cool, because i had to keep looking, so not only did i find an utterly awesome elephant; he actually had a be-parka-ed eskimo child* on his shoulders, giving me a SECOND HEAD to swap out, hooray! then i decided that the white space in the foreground would be a great place for a gator-dog. ok yeah, the clown-mallard is the sign i was starting to get just a little bit silly. in my defense: it's not every day you serendipitously happen to find a clown and a mallard who are exactly the right scale for a head-swap! how could i resist? the title of the story, "who wants to run away?" was originally at the top of the page, but the eski-duck's egg covered most of it, so i moved it down to the bottom. i patched in some nondescript trees in the distance so that there were no elements extending up and out of the scene.

so here we have one of those weeks where the assignment was totally fun from start to finish, i learned a lot of cool new stuff, AND i really like my finished piece. pretty much the collage trifecta right there!!! :)

check out the comments of the "swapping heads" post at collage obsession for links to the other readers' awesome and whimsical creations!

*they were all in a very badly damaged little golden picture dictionary, under "E" (hence the easter egg!) luckily the part of the page i wanted only had a few little stains on it and no big rips! :)

collage obsession: GLOW

still totally love doing the collage obsession challenge. it's especially exciting when i get to play during the week; which doesn't happen all that often so i savor the times like these!

this week the inspiration word is "glow". this time i really i had nooooooo idea what i was going to make when i sat down. i'm not even entirely sure *NOW* to tell the truth! i basically just combined a bunch of ingredients that were glowing... (CAT scan of a brain from nat'l geographic; funky fractal from an old calendar; diamonds; super-bright birdie* etc) ...in a way that is either admirably abstract or just totally weird, lol; i guess it depends if you like it or not. i think i do, actually. nice. :)

check out the other readers' take on "glow" at collage obsession!

*the ship? yeah, i don't know either. it was in one of the books i looked through when i was gathering images, and i liked it; plus it was mostly the same colors as the brain. also, i just finished the strangest (in a good way...mostly...) book i've ever read-- "S" by doug dorst and jj abrams--and i have the feeling it's gonna be sailing around my subconscious for a while! 

collage gone wild

this week's collage obsession challenge is freestyle, which means we can make... and link up... anything we want. so i did!

i've said before that i think my collages, more than anything else i make, are the most likely to just go off on a tangent. admittedly, i have a very low-tangent threshold, generally, lol; and an increasingly willingness to just let that sort of thing happen.* it turns out, my subconscious often has ideas that are waaaaaay more interesting than the part of my brain that likes to PLAN THINGS. when it comes to collages-- especially art-journal-based ones-- i don't necessarily need to come up with an amazing finished product, i'm just having fun playing around.

in this case, i was already thinking about india, and i got out a file full of colorful, saturated graphics i thought would be perfect. the cardboard piece (which is actually part of a box from an old parcheesi set, that i think was used as a backer to a set of vintage papers i bought a while ago) seemed like the perfect backing on which to build my collage. how exactly the whole thing morphed into a pretty much monochromatic, rather geometric design, is the big mystery. but i think i kinda like it! :)

check out the comments on this post at collage obsession to see what other readers did with this fun open-ended assignment! ♥

*at the moment we're planning multiple decor projects at home, which involve finding specific (functional!) furniture pieces, light fixtures and window coverings that will all fit their assigned spots, not cost a million dollars, and MATCH EACH OTHER. i think this is a big part of why "freeform" art is especially appealing to me right now! :) :) :)

collage obsession: silhouette

is it still a collage if you've only glued two pieces of paper together? that's the kind of question this week's collage obsession challenge-- which is to use a silhouette-- is making me ask. because, for the first time ever, my collage only has two layers. on the other hand, i did spend quite a long time selecting just the right two pieces; in this case a buddha shape traced and cut onto a river-reflected sunset and a very backlit new york city skyline. so to answer my own question, i'd have to say this IS a collage. now that that's settled, want to see it? cool! here ya go:

if you want to see lots of other awesome silhouette collages, check out the gallery at collage obsession, it's definitely worth the trip.

the game of march!

i'm just squeaking in under the wire at collage obsession this week, even though i knew immediately what i wanted to make the minute i saw that the challenge was weather. march really is the ultimate weather month, isn't it? it is here in new jersey, anyhow. in the past month we've had temperatures ranging from 0 to 62F... sometimes both in one week! we've had sunshine, snow, rain, fog and high winds. all of this is more or less normal for march, but it does make it hard to plan your day. for example, how do you dress if you're leaving the house in the morning in one set of weather circumstances, and returning in the evening to something completely different? it kind of feels like someone's randomly spinning the wheel from a giant cosmic board game, doesn't it? yeah. i think so, too! :)

something else i haven't done yet this week is check out the weather gallery at collage obsession, so that's where i'm headed next. care to join me, darlings?

love saves the day!

this week at collage obsession, the challenge is mark-making. i have to confess that when it comes to old school paper-and-glue collage making-- which is kinda my favorite-- i seldom think about anything BUT the paper and other pre-made ingredients. which is possibly short-sighted, because there's so much i could be doing ON TOP, isn't there? so this time i played around a lot more:

i made a base of randomly glued white and off-white text papers. then i added the words by blending a bunch of different shades of water-soluble wax crayons. then i made a sort of sunburst around the words, using semi-translucent washi tapes. i liked the result, but the words didn't really stand out as much as i wanted, so i hit the sewing machine for a bit of outlining. ordinarily i'd've said this took fifteen minutes or so, but as it happens, i sat down at the machine right after putting a tray of fruit in the oven to roast, and the timer went off just before i finished outlining around the edges. so i know for a fact this took forty minutes! yikes! but i really like how it looks, so i'd say it was worth the time. (and the fruit was tasty, too!)

soomething else that's always worth the time is a nice cruise of the collage obsession gallery-- want to come?

under... where?

this week's challenge at collage obsession is called "under". it won't take you any longer than it did me to realize there are about a ZILLION ways to go with that: under the sea, under pressure, under the weather, under the table, undercover, understanding, underground... well, you get the idea. the point is, with so many awesome choices, only a real weirdo could wind up with "underwear". yeah. that'd be me. :0

(vintage: magazine clipping, newspaper text, sheet music, lingerie lace, sewing pattern, book page; found objects: japanese rice paper, postage stamps from a direct mail solicitation; doily patterned paper: amy tangerine, american crafts)

in my defense, i've been "saving" this corset illustration from a badly damaged but still very lovely 1907 copy of "the delineator" ladies' magazine, ever since i found it stuffed into a box of old record albums at a book sale a couple of years ago. it was the very first thing that popped into my head when i read the prompt. then i realized-- almost simulaneously-- that i had some beautiful fawn colored vintage lingerie lace, and they'd be perfect together. see?

i'm still somewhat obsessed with the "stapled collage" idea i started playing with over the summer during the index card a day and daily paper prompt projects via the daisy yellow art blog. i hadn't intended for this to be an example of that technique, but it just sort of happened, so i went with it. since i had the layer of super-wide lace towards the back of the collage, this one is held together by more than just the one staple... (i've sewn along the left and top edges of the lace, echoing the stitching on the patterned paper) ...but pretty much all of the rest of my ephemera is held by that one staple in the center, where those butterfly stamps are.

i don't know why that makes me so happy, but it does! another thing that makes me smile is seeing all the different ways the other players at collage obsession will interpret this theme, so that's where i'm off to next. wanna come with? ♥

monkey business!

that's the name of this week's challenge at collage obsession. of course your collage doesn't have to have *LITERAL* monkeys... but it can, if you want! mine does. see?

i was actually going in a completely different direction, but then i found those cuuuuuuute little guys and that was IT! i'm slightly afraid my inky, hand-cut, machine-stitched, dictionary paper jungle leaves might be a little overpowering to the small scale of the illustration, but i really like those, too, so hopefully they aren't "too much". bottom line: i had a lot of fun making this, and i never would've done so if it hadn't been for this fun prompt!

happiness is...

...loads of vintage paper, scissors, gluestick, stencils, spray inks, a sewing machine and-- especially-- using all of the above to make a freeform collage for this week's collage obsession prompt which just happens to be called, "happiness is..."! so here's what i made:

i had a blast with this one, though i confess that it took me (parts of) more than one evening to get where i wanted to be. i had the buddha and the random background the first night. the arch (from the second night) changed everything and got me in the ballpark. but the butterflies saved the day: punched ones from a hindi language newspaper, digital brush ones that i had printed out on clear labels but never used, and finally masked and sprayed ones. the tiny flowers were the very last thing i added, and they are the one truly premeditated element... i realized quite close to the end that i needed to pull the brown and gold colors from the buddha out into the frame area.

now i can't wait to check out the "happiness is..." gallery at collage obsession. wanna come, too?!

newton's third law, in collage form! :)

don't worry, i'm not gonna get all sciency or anything (as if i COULD, lol!) but i realized as i was photographing my collage obsession piece, for which the prompt was, "handwriting", that jeff and i have our own embodiment of the premise, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". in our case, the more winter gets chucked at us, the more we long for hawaii! and apparently, the more i long for hawaii, the more i like making hawaiian-themed things. here's one, now:

i suppose you could argue that the vibe of this is more art journal-ish than collage-y... but really, where do you draw that line? should there even BE a line? checking out the various galleries at collage obsession you'll see so many totally cool, totally different takes and styles for each theme that you realize how wonderfully elastic the term "collage" actually is!

in this case i've assembled a few bits of vintage hawaiiana (the postcard and newspaper clipping) and some souveniers from our trip (funky stickers and part of a tourist map). i've added in handwriting by filling the vintage ledger page background with my favorite and jeff's favorite memories from our 2011 trip. i've also made some big bold handwritten-- and handcut-- titles which read, "aloha and mahalo"... the hawaiian words for hello (also goodbye, and love) and thank you; which you hear constantly in our fiftieth state.

now i can't wait to check out the other entries at collage obsession... won't you join me?!

the collage that just didn't want to be collaged

thanks to winter storm pax* i had another surprise bonus cower-at-home sort of day this week, so i decided to treat myself to a bit of free form, just-for-fun collage-making. except... it wasn't. the topic this week at collage obsession is "steampunk" which i totally love, so i figured this'd be a gimme. i cut out loads of lovely gauges, gears, cogs, wheels, engine parrts, victorian ladies, flying machines, and funky rube goldberg inventions. see?

everything you could possibly need for an awesome steampunk collage, am i right?  except... it wasn't. i moved things around and around, but nothing came together. so i went outside and cleared off the bushes which were so bowed over with snow and ice that bits of them were laying on the ground.** then i came back and moved things around and around, but nothing came together. i emptied the dishwasher and helped a computer-phobic friend learn to facetime over the phone. then i moved things around and around, but nothing came together. so i vacuumed the house. then i came back and moved things around and around, but nothing came together.

since this was meant to be a fun snowday activity, i began to think that it was time to give up and move on to something else. except... it wasn't.  because after i jettisoned 95% of the things i had cut out, i started to get a little glimmer of something cool. then i found this gorgeous cloudy background paper behind the introduction of a book about the history of flight. and then everything came together! dontcha just love a happy ending?

so yeah, out of the elebenty thousand bits i gathered and cut out, i only used SIX. (six!!!) possibly a low-end record for me, collage-wise! i guess sometimes less really is more. wow. how 'bout that! does this mean that a watched pot really doesn't ever boil, either? a few more gratuitous snow-based days at home and i may be tempted to test that one, too! :)

*dear weather authorities, please stop naming these things, it only encourages them! love, lauren (as do videos like THIS ONE but it's so awesome i just had to share it!) :) :) :)
**yews are pretty hearty, right? how 'bout arbor vitae? and rhododendrons?? ack! please say these guys will bounce back!

more snow... this time with *ICE*...

...which rhymes with "nice" but has NOTHING ELSE in common! yeah. definitely not a fabulous weather week here in the northeast. unless you run a snowplowing business, in which case, it's pretty much a dream come true. did you even know lamborghini made snow plows? bling-encrusted ones? very tasteful!!! in the last week i'm pretty sure i've paid for at least a tire on one of those babies! :0

on the plus side, being stuck in the house means i got to play along with collage obsession sooner, woohoo! this week's prompt is called "nature's home" and the inspiration image is a gorgeous shell, though i've gone off in a completely different direction, as it turns out.

ok, i seriously doubt if anyone is surprised to see me using birds, are they, lol? i'm still playing with the "fractured landscape" idea as well. as for the rest, it just sort of happened, which is my favorite way to make a collage! speaking of favorites, i suggest you go check out the gallery at collage obsession, it's well worth the trip!

my collage-making obsession continues...

...and the aptly named collage obsession blog is fully supporting my habit!  this week's prompt is "bridge" which we can use in any way we'd like. i wound up being pretty literal, using a vintage gummed label of the golden gate bridge from an american geographical society book:

once i had the cool sticker as a centerpiece, i thought i might use some of the "bits" from my 2012 trip to san francisco, but it didn't turn out that way. somehow, i wound up using the colors of the photo more than anything, and working rather randomly; which seems to be my collaging style at the moment.

however as i look at the completed piece, i realize that i've got chopsticks and some chinese text and the fortune from a cookie... which kind of (obliquely) illustrate how much we loved san francisco's chinatown. and there's a tally sheet... quite appropriate, since on every trip my friend barb and i take together there is a SERIOUS ongoing canasta tournament at the hotel each evening! then, i suppose, the rest of the vintagey bits and bobs can represent the fact that we've never been known to walk past a thrift shop, rummage sale or bookstore without going in. so really, this collage is all about our trip, afterall! :)

be sure to check out collage obsession, there is already a totally *FAB* gallery of work posted for the "bridge" theme!

city crafter and (possibly?) collage obsession

it's another oddball post, i'm afraid. but at the moment i seem to be seriously addicted to making fast, random collages, so bear with me, ok? this one is in honor of two challenges i've been longing to participate in. first up: my old favorite city crafter*, whose current call, "the key to my heart" is for projects which include both a heart and a key**. i've obviously got one of each, so i'm pretty sure we're good to go on that score, woohoo!

the second challenge is a new-to-me site called collage obsession, which i've be quietly and awe-fully stalking for the last few weeks. they want us to feature the newly announced pantone color of the year, radiant orchid in this week's color challenge. now, in real life, my flower is an almost perfect match, which is why i chose it as my centerpiece... but it's only one element of my otherwise neutrally-toned piece. add to that the fact that unfortunately, i left my photo-taking until rather late in this grey new jersey day, and it's messed with my color a bit, making my flower look pinker than it actually is. so i won't be crushed if the lovely folks at collage obsession disqualify me on that account, but i thank them for the inspiration, and hopefully i'll be back next week to play again! :)

meanwhile, i do hope everyone reading this has had a very pleasant sunday, which featured LOTS of artsy pursuits and as few chores as possible! ciao, darlings! ♥

*miss kirsty may recognize a few of the elements i have used here, seeing as the little resin bird, the music paper, the gem flourish, and the heart were all part of the wrappings of a lovely little parcel which came my way last week! ta v much, missus! ♥♥♥

**i've only just noticed that one of the first words at the top of the dictionary page i built my collage upon is "armpit". pretty sure mine will be the only entry this week at CCCB... or indeed ANY of the major papercrafting challenges, for that matter... to prominently feature a heart, a key, and an armpit. awesome. sorry guys. :)