Blossom

Aging Flower Child

All cozy in her bed of pansies!  Advertisement for Kenwood Blankets circa 1952.  Flowers courtesy of a vintage book of "Garden Flowers in Color".

Spring Has Sprung

Pulling Up The Daffs

springtime thermodynamics

This collage arises from my recent focus on reducing the quantity of paper (piles & books) in my house, and bringing order to what remains. I'm calling it the BERP, for Big Entropy Reduction Project. It's kind of like spring cleaning, except it's spring organizing.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, stated very simply, says that in a closed system, entropy (disorder, randomness) keeps increasing 'til the system is at equilibrium. So even if you start with an elephant thinking about spring and offering flowers to Marilyn Monroe (upper left), eventually things run down into detritus. The telephone pole (middle left) stands for information, which can make the system more orderly, or not. I don't really know.

Fortunately for the state of my house, though, let alone for all other human endeavors, we don't live in a closed system. Other stuff is happening in the Universe, like the birth of new stars. And there are spiritual forces, too, perhaps (Buddha in upper right).

Spring In Colour

Spring Again

Springtime For The World

the birds return

This was an unusually-shaped postcard that I made and mailed at the beginning of my making collages, in late April 2010. The card was about 8 inches in diameter. All the birds are species I see in our mini-forest of a backyard in suburban DC. If I were making this card today, I'd be able to add a huge pileated woodpecker, since I saw one in our yard last year (!). They are all exactly to scale with each other: that part took a long time to accomplish.

Apologies for the fact that it's not scanned very well: operator error.

The Rite of Spring (3)

I made this a while ago but haven´t shown it till yet - so it´s not really from the archives ;)

Spring Affair

St. Sebastian in Springtime

Couldn't resist sharing a recent cheerful little piece celebrating Spring.....

Springtime Baa-lads

Theme of the Week - SPRING IS HERE!

This theme speaks for itself really. New growth - green shoots, blossom, chicks, lambs and maybe those coiled bits of metal that are so useful! Have fun!

What the NUN Saw

The background is a detail and deconstruction of Rene Magritte's "The Meaning of Night" ("Le Sens de la nuit"), 1927.  Nun found in Harter's Picture Archive for Collage and Illustration. One of the nun's eyes is from a vintage Maybelline makeup advertisement.

leg and sky

If I start writing about all the disasters that befell this collage on its way to your eyeballs, I'll never stop...so I won't start. =laugh= The frame, incidentally, is black velvet ribbon.

The Kid And Her Pet

BEE

arm gun die

Dissected cadaver arm from the Color Atlas of Human Anatomy. Photo at the bottom was taken on a field where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought, the morning after.

Not all my collages reflect my feelings, because I was in a perfectly pleasant mood when I thought up this one. =laugh=

SPY

DOG

Sorry I have been rather distracted over the Easter weekend with family and going out to different places - Macclesfield, Granma's, Boot sales etc. so this is from the archives.

Mia and Cat

Mia Farrow from the cover of a circa 1967 Silver Screen movie magazine.  Cat from a sheet of gift wrap.  Background a piece of scrap-booking paper.  Flowers from a sheet of stationery.

POT

Le Bat

Mariposa

Car

Red

the flexible fox

Another from my archives. Last spring a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) sauntered slowly across my suburban front lawn, as bold as brass. I've been a fan of foxes since I was a little girl, so I decided to do some serious research on the subject. As it turns out, the red fox is the most widely distributed carnivore on the planet. They've adapted very well to living near humans, and in fact, it's said that there are more red foxes living today than ever before.

I made this collage to show off their flexibility of habitat: the map strips, going from left to right, are a river/marsh area, agricultural land, a city, hills & prairie, and forest.

mister red has a few problems

The Illustration Friday group on ipernity has a weekly theme, too, and I just made this one for their theme of "Red." 'Couldn't resist throwing it into the pot for this week's KK theme...

The spiders, from left to right, are a goliath tarantula, a Mexican jumping spider, and a hunting spider of genus Dysdera. Mister Red is from a painting by Walter M. Baumhofer on the cover of Doc Savage magazine, 1935.

I think spiders are beautiful and interesting, but I'm rather strongly arachnophobic, so cutting out all those legs was something of an adventure!

THE END (LOL)

A bedtime story.....
My final collage in a collage.
Thanks to the theme this week I could fit this in and use the girl one more time ;))

Theme of the Week - Three Letter Words

Collages containing or about three letter words. ART, SKY, RAT, CAT, BAT etc. Quite a few to choose from! Hav fun!

For a wonder, by a miracle

It is my big imagination ;))
I don't think I can diminish it further, I think I will loose the first image when I try.
From the 'golden-bunnies-book' series.... 'The adventures of naughty little Josephine'......

Aztec Rope Trick

'Kill-Your-Darlings'

I thought I could continue these world wonders with my previous collage, it's possible there's something much bigger behind you....  Watch Out, Take Care!

Strange Apparition In The Alps

Not exactly one of the 7 Wonders but would be pretty amazing to see I think - that and the lack of oxygen at altitude would make you feel a bit giddy!

The Leaning Colossus of ZZ Topp

When Sam Stumbled Upon the Valley of Behemoth Bats He Was Glad He Could Prove It With a Film. However, He Didn't Bargain For the Mother of All Bats to Rip Off His Head As He Was Doing It.

Thanks to Harter's Picture Archive of copyright free rare 19th-century engravings for the moonlit background, the bats and the scary screaming skull.  Sam is from a 1950s magazine advertisement.

Heap Big Totem Pole

Girlpower!

Don't know much about the 7 wonders of the world, but these ladies look like a little wonder to me.
Probably related or married to some of those strong pyramid builders from the previous collage ;))
I think the lady on the left  could also be married to Zeus!

Bird Bath In The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon

Building The Pyramids

The REAL Cyclops

(psst....she's a woman...)

Theme of the Week - 7 Wonders of the World

This week's theme is one we've had before but I'm sure we can come up with some more ideas . Have fun!

Traditional Shoppers At The Local 'Fish & Chick'ens' Market.

'Meat and Greet' at the Butcher's

Because of my perfect diet we all fit in this grocery basket.

the dumpster will provide

From my archives. I made this one for a friend who does a lot of her shopping in dumpsters. "The dumpster will provide" is her slogan. And yes, she does find a lot of unbroken fragile objects in dumpsters. (For those of you who don't know the term, a dumpster is a large metal waste container. The company Dempsey Dumpster used to fiercely defend their right to that word, but it's become like "kleenex"—once a trademark, now ubiquitous.)

mail order mania 2

I had some background materials and mail order products left over (this time including a few images from book covers), so I made another collage from them. That's not a real alligator: it's a garden ornament. The old books at top were made into a side table. And the equations on the blackboard are for another DVD course.

Junk Market

mail order mania

This collage—at 11" x 16", the largest I've ever made—is about shopping by mail. Almost all the images on display came from catalogs I've gotten, selling everything from art prints to jewelry to glass objects to fake artifacts to baby blankets. Even Robert E. Lee on top and the galaxy in the lower right were hawking DVDs for courses on history and astronomy. And the bald rat was for sale through a laboratory supply catalog.

Background constructed from discarded books and newspapers, plus an old report card. Black arrows made from the Taschen book, Magic. With rubber stamps of star and spiral.

Cheapness And Beauty

non-consumption

Tupperware Makes Great Stashes

Devilish Diane Deceived Her "Scratch-Cake" Loving Husband with Store Bought Mixes

Happy couple from a 1952 advertisement for Palmolive Soap.  Various cake mixes found in same magazine.  (PS  My sister has been doing this for years and is the inspiration for the collage.  I hope her husband doesn't see it!)

Religious Electronics Sellers

Street Seller