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Gee Whiz #6

Also with Roger Stevens - this latest collaborative collaged comic/booklet - 16 pages of nonsense and silliness. Hopefully it will be ready to print in January next year. Back issues can be found HERE.

We Are Now Approaching Hassocks

In case you are not on Facebook and not aware of this CD by Roger Stevens - I did the cover art for it recently ( actually an old collage from the archives that Roger picked because it had a train in it - Hassocks being a station not far from Brighton where he lives!) and if you go to HERE you can find more of Roger's excellent recorded work which mostly has artwork by yours truly.

THEME of the week: What you are working on at the moment?

Dear snipping friends,
I thought it might be nice to see, what you are working on at the moment - or what comes in your mind in the upcoming week.

November is almost over - the questions is now who wants to choose our themes for December?
If nobody is there in line I can continue during December - if someone is burning for this job I do absolutely have no problem to pass an the baton!
As you like.

And now: Go for it - snip snap

Visitors from The Dark Side of the Moon

Poe In Prison

The Raven

because iron is why blood is red

iron —> heme —> hemoglobin —> blood

Top: Still from "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992)
Middle: Still from "Don't Look Now" (1973)
Bottom: from Vlad the Impaler: The Man Who Was Dracula

taunting the reaper

I know you guys have seen this one, from my archives, before, but it's what I need to post to get started on this theme--a very important theme for me. (I absolutely LOVE it. =smile=) New ones are coming.

Robed figure from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Head of figure from a sculpture by François Rude. Snake from Albertus Seba's Das Naturalienkabinett. Four images on left from Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook. (They are of actual dead people.)

A Stormy Night In Poe Woods

One from the archives.

THEME: Tales of Mystery and Imagination

"Tales of Mystery and Imagination" is the title of a collection of Edgar Allan Poe´s macabre stories as well as the title of the debut album by the British rock band The Alan Parsons Project, released 1976, which is retelling Poe´s horror stories and poetry. (Both very nice, BTW)

As we are all a little dark humored and "macabre" folks I thought it might be a good theme for us - not in the sense of "illustrate one song OR one Poe story" (what you can certainly also do if you like) but more in the sense of "tell us/ create your own macabre story".

Have fun!

AND - certainly:
Happy Thanksgiving to our group members and their families in the USA  !!!

Xmas ATC's

Sneak preview of our Xmas card this year probably!

The Kiss (1 & 2)

Number 1 I made once before but traded it, so made a new one
called: Licking Wounds (lesson one at first aid)
Number 2 is called:
Almost there

At The Beach

nine little abstracts

I have a problem with ATCs, which is that I have large hands and fumbly fingertips. I'm no good at working small. So I usually never make them. But for this theme, I decided to make one large abstract, the size of nine ATCs, then cut out the nine pieces, jumble them up, and scan them. Ta-da! Or something...

Mini Movie Posters at The ATC Cinema

ATC - Swallow

One from the archives

Works of Art ATC series

Here is the 5th ATC I made. "Bust of Inge #2" 1956 by Giacomo Manzu (1908-1991). Background is by Stuart Davis (1892-1964) entitled "Underpass No. 1" 1955.

Works of Art ATC series

This one was fun to make. Background is "Le Poisson" by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). The painted terracotta figure is "Donna Inginocchiata" 1937 by Marino Marini (1901-1980).

Works of Art ATC series

I really like this one. Background is a painting entitled "Carnival in the Mountains" 1924 by Paul Klee (1879-1940). Can you guess who the black & white portrait is? "Portrait of Picasso" 1908 by Marie Laurencin (1883-1956).

Works of Art ATC series

This ATC features a background by Stuart Davis (1892-1964) "Underpass No. 1" 1955. Of course that is a bust of Queen Nefertiti.

Works of Art ATC series

I had the best time combining two different works of art. Here is the first of five. The painting in the background is by Dutch artist Pyke Koch (1901-1991), entitled "The Signal" 1975. Of course the man in the foreground is by René Magritte (1898-1967) and is cut from the painting entitled "Pandora's Box" 1951.

Twenty Eight ATC's

I always have a pile of ATC's knocking around on my work table - some from earlier in the year - always interesting to do another configuration!

THEME OF THE WEEK: ATC

As we worked on (or: "in" ??) small scales last week I thought it would be nice to create some ATCs....
We all know what ATC means - but nevertheless here is what Wikipedia says:
"Artist trading cards are 2 ¹⁄₂ by 3 ¹⁄₂ inches (64 mm × 89 mm) in size, the same format as modern trading cards (hokey or cards or baseball cards). "
Go for it!
⁄₂ inches (64 mm × 89 mm) in size, the same format as modern trading cards (hockey cards or baseball cards). "

Standing Tall Among the Trees

I thought I would reference the source of the postage stamp -- TREES! The bronze statue is by Giacomo Manzu (1908-1991) "Dancer with Skirt" 1956. The tall tree next to the statue is "General Sherman", a giant sequoia tree located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, California. Height: 275 feet (83 m)  Diameter: Over 36 feet (11m)  Weight: 4.188783 million pounds!

Rock Stamps

artistamps: anna banana

Sticking with the artistamps series for now, I pulled out four artistamps from famed mail artist Anna Banana—her Banana Post 1989.

I don't know where the black-&-white background came from—it was just floating around on my work table—but most of the banana images come from Creative Commons. For those of  you keeping track of Kollage Kit themes, I did a patch of rollage with spotted banana skin. I'm afraid that after I'd already glued down the green veggies in the middle top area, I realized they are not bananas, but banana peppers. Oops...oh well.

The Philatelist ....(I think I found a new hobby)

I was so impressed by Angie's book so I just had to try and draw my own stamp ....
I found a lovely photo of this girl in an old magazine .... very Dutch and very vintage.

LOVE stamp

Okay, I have a huge stash of mostly vintage stamps. I was hard pressed to find a suitable image of a woman to place atop the bride's head. More women are commemorated these days. But back in the day not so much! (Of course I had a lot of Queen Elizabeth stamps which I really love and have done some projects with!) The photograph is a turn of the century cabinet card.

artistamps: numerals

All right, so this one is kinda weird. The stamps are perforated, so I'll be pulling them apart before affixing them to postcards or envelopes. But the small rubber stamps don't show off very well. Some of them look like bugs landed on my scanner or something... =laugh=

I used brush-tip markers to do the backgrounds, and acrylic paint markers for the numbers, etc. If you don't have a source for perforated sheets, and would like to try making some artistamps of your own, I recommend these folks, although there are a number of companies to choose from. The tiny "peg" rubber stamps can be seen much better at their source, Meer Image. If you're into rubber stamps, or just want to see some cool rubber artwork, I highly recommend browsing Steven Vander Meer's catalog.

frenchpop by post

Pete Mango

artistamps: horses

I figure: why not use this theme as an excuse to make some new artistamps for use in mail art? =smile=

These stamps of horses are unperforated. They are approximately 2 inches (5 cm) square. They are mounted on a background of "1950s abstract" from a Pepin wrapping paper book. I will cut them out individually and stick them onto envelopes & postcards.

Is it just me, or does the group of horses on the "30" stamp look like a great image for the Rolling Stones theme--the song being, of course, "Wild Horses"?

Stamping my way around ...

Well of course I had something completely different in my mind with this theme ...
and I proceeded with my own interpretation of 'stamps' ;))

Collage made on 'stamping grounds' ..

American Women of The Glamour Years, Paris (1919-1940) Commemorative Series 65 cent Imperforate (not perforated) Issue #3 ROMAINE BROOKS

Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) born Beatrice Romaine Goddard. American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri. She specialized in portraiture. She enjoyed dressing as a man.

American Women of The Glamour Years, Paris (1919-1940) Commemorative Series 65 cent Imperforate (not perforated) Issue #2 JOSEPHINE BAKER

Josephine Baker (1906-1975) entertainer, civil rights activist and French Resistance agent.

American Women of The Glamour Years, Paris (1919-1940) Commemorative Series 65 cent Imperforate (not perforated) Issue #1 GERTRUDE STEIN

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). American novelist, poet, playwright and art collector. Gertrude and her partner Alice B. Toklas were keen on white purebred poodles and owned 3 in succession, all named Basket.

doubled stamp from asia

cute little hatchlings (parasaurolophus)

My father was a geologist, so I was inoculated at an early age into a major obsession with the wonderful world of rocks, fossils, and dinosaurs. He did field work in Kansas for his dissertation: along the way he discovered a nearly complete Eohippus skeleton (early relative of the horse). I think that is way cool.

I was going to make a rollage with dinosaur images, but ran out of time. No big deal—as y'all may have noticed, I find almost any theme an excuse for a dino collage. =laugh= The U.S. 32-cent stamps are from a first-day cover block cancelled on May 1, 1997, in Grand Junction, Colorado. I'm not a serious philetalist, so what do I have these babies for, if not to use in a collage? The scene with the Parasaurolophus (say that one three times fast) hatchlings is dated 75 million years ago. I'm not sure of this, but it looks like the females and males had different shapes of crests. Wild, man.

The Parasaurolophus skeleton is from the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Gregory S. Paul—enhanced with a couple of markers. Both backgrounds, geometric and skulls, are from the series of Pepin wrapping paper books (available at Amazon, so check 'em out).

A note on the composition: my great-niece Grace, a high school student, believes that any collage should have something interesting in the lower righthand corner. Who am I to argue with that? =grin=

Republica De Coll

One from the archive.

spotted owl with curly brackets

I'm working on a new piece for the stamps theme, but in the meantime, this is one from my 2013 archives.

The spotted owl is native to conifer forests in the North American west to northwest. My husband Bob, who is an ecosystem biologist, chose the pteranodon stamp, saying, "It's good to remind people that an owl is a living pteranodon." Not taxonomically, of course, but in the sense that both of them are big flying carnivores.

let it bleed

Thanks, guys, for encouraging me to post my overdue Rolling Stones collage. As I explained before, the reason why it's overdue is that we were way out in the ridge-&-valley section of south-central Pennsylvania, away from the Internet, when I made this collage.

The element that triggered this is in the upper righthand corner: it's a fragment from Keith Richards's autobiography (memoirs, whatever). It's funny, so I hope it will be legible, once you've enlarged it.

I added to this piece some dibs and dabs and dribbles of liquid acrylic paint.

Enough said. =smile=

Typewriter

It´s from October - but to come  into the mood ...

Theme of the week: STAMPS

Lately I have been in a museum about communication and one division was about stamps, what was pretty interesting - not only to see very old stamps but also to see a how (some) stamps are created.
So I thought this theme might be interesting for us.
What is possible?
- Use stamps in your collage
- or create your own stamp (the main components of a stamp are: image, perforation, denomination, country name)
- or ........what ever comes into your creative mind.
Have fun!

Hang This On Your Fuse Box

Where To Now?

rollage: baboon

I warned you: I said I might go berserk! =laugh=

Photo of baboon by Fritz Lansing. Background from 2016 calendar "Islands in the Sun."

A question for y'all: would it be just terribly out of line if I posted a Rolling Stones collage I made? I didn't think I was going to do one, since we did go up to the farm and out of internet contact, but as it happened, there was an item in the box of supplies I took with me that was just perfect for the Stones, and I ended up making a RS collage after all. By the time I got home, we were already into Hallowe'en, of course.

What do you think? I could post it to the Rolling Stones part of the blog, if that would be preferable.

rollage: land/cloudscape

Painting by Alan Sonneman.

I'm not sure I'm doing this technique the way you're supposed to, but I do have a penchant for the surreal and/or abstract. And Sabine, you did say "mixed, moved, twisted, interchanged, omitted..." =laugh=

"The Caged Tiger" Rollage

"Study of a Tiger" by Francois Desportes (1661-1743) is the background and "Scene from the Chateau de Bicétre Ballet: The Sprites' Entrance by Daniel Rabel (1578-1637) form the bars of his cage.

"Olive Thomas, The Lonely Flower" Rollage

Olive Thomas (1894-1920) was an American silent film actress & model. She is placed on top of "The Lonely Flower" 1934, a piece by Paul Klee (1879-1940).

Portrait Rollage - horizontal and vertical

I´m working on a project at the moment and had some ink jet prints of cabinet cards around -

so I tried to make rollages with portraits and cut them horizontal and vertical. 

I like the first one (vertical) better, but nevertheless I liked to try!

rollage: morris

Patterns by William Morris.