Collage and discoveries

In one of my drawing classes we had to do an assigment on Collages, I thought this was going to be easy. However, since I hadn't done collage since grade school I thought it might be a good idea to get some references and ideas, and so I went to the book store and bought "Creative Collage Techinques, A step-by-step guide including 52 demonstrations and the work of over 60 artists." by Nita Leland & Virginia Lee Williams. I do recommand this book to anyone who is interested in doing Collages, it gives you a great overview into the world of Collage Art.

Soon after opening the book, I was amazed at what you could do with this medium, the infinite possibilities. I got real excited about the collage assignment and I started to gather everything I could put my hands on that could be used in a collage. So far so good, then I started to panick and stress out, and now, as I am writing this I am also realizing how my creative process works and how I go through the same phases each time I start a new assignment, fear of not delivering something worthy.


In my mind everything is easy, but materializing it becomes stressful especially when it is an assignment. Million ideas float around my mind and usually this is where they stay, well, I won't go there this is for later post...

Anyhow, assignments are different than free creativity because of the expectations I think others have of me and that scares me. However, when I approach a personnal project I am free of that and I just go at it without giving it too much thought.

So, for the collage project I thought I would use a burlap background, this felt organic and I wanted to pass a message through the collage, an environmental one. Then I got lucky one day while I was at Michel's studio (my hubby and photographer) he was cleaning up shop and throwing out film cut outs, a mere save I recuperated them, I really wanted to integrate these in the collage, recycling...why not?

Also, in the dumpster I found boxes of old magazines, specialty magazines for Illustrators and Printers, these were a wonderful source of collage materials and ideas. I am a bit of squirl, I accumulate things...I am not a horder, but I can't resist anything made of paper, somehow I feel paralyzed when I try to throw any of it out.

My two pieces ended up being about recycling: time, old magazines and film.

Also, in doing this post I found some intersting Websites on Collages that I would like to share with you :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage
http://www.abstract-art-information-inspiration.com/Techniques.html
Amazing collages by Daniela Akerblom:
http://www.flipimage.ca/collages/
Interesting collages by Dorene Lehavi:
http://www.collagesbydorene.com/
Jonathan Talbot : Painter and Collage Artist
http://www.jonathantalbot.com/
Bob & Julia Kilvert
http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/h-art/North_211.aspx
Here are a couple of Websites with several collage artists
http://www.collageart.org/links/
http://www.collageartists.org/artists.html


My favorite Picasso and Braque's works are collages. I find they were avant-gardist to use this medium to express themselves, and in doing so they revatalized this art form in their time.