everybody is strange

I love these leftover scraps themes: I could do them for weeks on end before I used up all my scraps. If you could see how totally inundated my work table is with rejects from previous projects, you'd wonder how I ever get anything done. The background, for example, is one I considered using for one of the Andy Warhol's costume party collages: it's a fabric pattern titled "Deconstructed Knit, 2010" designed by Brittany Keats Cerullo. The two-headed African deer is by good ol' Albertus Seba. The hands are from a book on the archives of the National Library of Medicine. The two people are from an old postcard a friend gave me. With blue acrylic paint.

From the Scrap Pile: Split

(Just as I found them, no additional cutting, just some arranging and some glue...)

Operating Shed

Not all left-overs as such. The eyes and the shed are but the brain parts and body are cut from recent charity shop finds books.

Do You Come Here Often?

Wide World

OBRIGADO

OBRIGADO - You are invited to contribute to an ongoing festival of mail art during the month of December 2013 on the above theme (Portuguese for ''Thank You") to celebrate a year of visual arts in Northwich town centre of the 2nd artist run VAC Gallery in Northwich, Cheshire, UK. Work will be available for sale to fund future gallery projects. Work unsold will remain in the gallery archive. Please send work via the postal system ( all media, all sizes ) to - OBRIGADO, The VAC Gallery, 93 Brunner Court, Northwich, Cheshire , CW9 5DR. UK from now until December 31st 2013. Documentation in the form of an online blog to be announced.



Sorry for the intrusion but this is rather short notice and need as many participants as possible ! I would love to see some collages from members of this group in the exhibition which starts soon and possibly extended into 2014. Cheers! Michael

Party Time

Weekly Theme

Leftovers - more appropriate for those who are celebrating Thanksgiving today but I'm sure all collage artists everywhere have plenty of leftovers to use up - think scraps from your desk and floor :)

self contained

I didn't take this theme as far as I wanted but couldn't seem to get in the groove this week.

absurdi-poisson

All the fantasy fish parts are collage, scavenged from about thirty different fish painted by French artist Samuel Fallours, around the first decade of the 18th century. Background is a list of fish illustrations in Fallours's handwriting. Green & blue wash with watercolor markers. Scales, spines, & connecti-bits drawn with fine-point markers.

Driven From the Garden

One from a couple years ago...background is pen and ink, collaged figures are some left-over paper scraps.

Challenge

This was a  real challenge for me because I´m not that brilliant in sketching - as you see. 

This is a miserable try but at least the best I produced :)

And Now for Something Completely Different....

 

I had some fun with the Monty Python reunion this week.

Whispers

A magazine scrap missing its eyes, a mechanical pencil and some Derwent watercolour pencils...

Communication Breakdown

I've been having fun cutting up circa early 1930s issues of The Saturday Evening Post magazine.  The background is from a double page ad for The Ford Motor Company.  The handsome farmer was a cover illustration.  The depressed looking cigar smoker is from an ad for "smoker's fag" which was described as a lack of energy due to smoking too much.  Campbell's soup must have been a very popular convenience food as full page ads appeared in every issue.  I added a "shoestring" a black marker line connecting the tin cans as a communication device.

The Tattooed Lady

Stranger Than Fiction

Weekly theme

This week, incorporate some drawing into your collage, pencil, ink, paint, thread, etc.

I'm including one I did last week with just added pencil but am going to try and really push myself in a different direction.  I'm also including a piece by artist Laura Ferrara, I find her work to be very inspiring.

Electra Complex

you can see more of Laura's work here

Family Washing Day

Beatle Extended Family Tree

 

I've been caught up in different tasks this week so had to raid the archives.

The Family That Plays Together Stays Together

Future Family Planning

Ok - this is definitley not my family - but it fits to family-theme!

The Van Gogh Brothers

unreachable, unattainable

This is about my weird, sad interaction with my parents. The woman is a rubber stamp, and I did the marks around the unattainable heart with a marker. The rest is collage. (From my archives, Septemer 2010.)

these are my parents

Need I say more? (From my archives, June 2011.)

Myrtle sure was fertile.

Not exactly what I had in mind for my piece when I chose this topic, but I thought this was pretty funny.  Will try again!

Home Entertainment

Noah's Extended Family

What's Up With Granpa?

Family Portrait

A childhood fantasy...

Weekly Theme

I've had this one on my list for a while, create your own family.  Ideas for this but not limited to: family scene, family tree, the family you wish you had, etc.!

I don't have an example because I haven't done one yet.

Practical Householder

Atomic Skis

Winter's coming....

The Money Pit

Reasons To Be Cheerful

you are nothing substantial

you are nothing substantial

you are an empty white box

a bit of frayed twine

a piece of bubble wrap

a scrap of silver tape

you are an

unwanted, 

hastily discarded

gift

I was hesitant to post this one, I started it last week when we were doing round images, then started adding pasted words and became so dissatisfied, I added a poem I wrote within a dream/nightmare one night last week.  I've been reading a book called "Wintering" about Sylvia Plath's last months and it really affected me deeply.  

Unloading The Ark

relief

The Rubenesque woman in the collage is Frances Rockefeller King, an aspiring actress, snipped from Vanity Fair magazine, March 1900. The ad for bras for large busts is cut from a circa 1960s movie magazine.  The word "relief" was sitting on my work table and seemed to belong in this image.

Picasso's Last Words.

In an interview Paul McCartney says he was on vacation in Montego Bay, Jamaica where he "snuck" onto the set of the film Papillon where he met Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen.

After a dinner with Hoffman, with McCartney playing around on guitar, Hoffman did not believe that Paul could write a song "about anything", so Hoffman pulled out a magazine where they saw the story of the death of Pablo Picasso and his famous last words, "Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can't drink anymore."

McCartney created a demo of the song and lyrics on the spot, prompting Hoffman to exclaim to his wife: "…look, he's doing it…he's doing it!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD_8QkvnDLA

Exercises in futility

whew - two pieces that have been "in process" for a very long time, finally!

thoughts of happily ever after

Between the cities

Contents

Oak Floors

I cut the long ad for OAK FLOORS for Everlasting Economy from my trusty July 1923 "The House Beautiful" magazine.  Nude woman is Dover clip art (she was laying on the work table for quite awhile, just waiting to make an appearance in one of my collages!)  Spoil Youself is type from ???  It was a bit of scrap on the table.

The Death of Orpheus

Orpheus was in despair after he lost his love, Eurydice, for the second time. He rejected the company of women and isolated himself from civilization.  A group of Maenads (female followers of Dionysus, who often celebrated in a state of drunken, ecstatic frenzy) discovered Orpheus where he sat singing beneath a tree. When he refused to join their drunken revels, they were infuriated by his rejection.  The women attacked him, throwing rocks and branches, but Orpheus' music was so enchanting that it charmed the rocks and sticks, and they refused to strike him. Finally, the furious Maenads tore him apart with their bare hands, and threw his dismembered body into the river. Orpheus' head floated down the river, still singing, until it finally came to rest on the isle of Lesbos.  His lyre was tossed up into the heavens, where it became the constellation Lyra.

Weekly Theme - incorporating words.

I thought since November is National Novel Writing Month (not participating this year, thank heavens!) We could do something with words - this is an example of one I did earlier this year - I actually created two poems from an old hair dye ad, one for blondes and this one for brunettes

Grown-up beauty.

The Age of Invention

The black & white background is from a Whitman Creative Art Book entitled "Print Art".  Woman is snipped from a 1928 Good Housekeeping magazine.  The various pieces of clip art including the illustration of the "Cold Air Machine of the Paris Morgue" are from Scientific American magazines circa 1887.  (I've had these for years and finally have the nerve to cut them up!)

Come Round For Tea

All Gather Round

The Circular Things Workshop

The A-Lister

This guy may have lost his eyes, but he still has the greatest name ever...Benedict Cumberbatch.

Figure Drawing

What a relief to use up three more scraps that have been on my desk for nearly a year! I'm trying really had this month to push myself in new directions.