What's Up?

One from the archive to start with.

THEME of the Week - Cartoon Strip

Sorry it's a bit late. Have fun with this theme. Make a cartoon strip or made from cartoon strip/ comic etc. Who's up for picking themes for September?

Midnight at the Noir-Noir Mwah-Mwah Motel

I felt bad about having poor old Meatloaf shot in this collage, but his photo (from Bat Out Of Hell) was crying out to be altered, so I went ahead and did the deed anyway. Sorry Meatloaf, but needs must!

Piecing It All Together

GHOST of the BLACK CAT - early silent film era poster

Maybe this is more of a horror film, but I had fun making it and will attempt another film noir later this week. Cat images (including the one with the cross) are from a book about cats. I found two artworks -- "Mizzar" 1956-60 by Victor Vasarely (turned upside down so the diamond shape is on the bottom) and "Tarassa X" 1958 by Adia Yunkers. The two women are from an antique medical book I just acquired. The lady leaning backwards is demonstrating a back exercise and the other is giving herself a "dry" shampoo.

Between the cities

This is from the archives - I used images from a Film Noir book.

The Cake Cut

Early film noir that was lost in a mysterious fire at Universal Studios. Only thing left was this poster. Story outline was that mad scientist and baker The Sponge Finger ( Sigooff ) has plans for world domination of the cake and pudding industries. He teams up with Dame Betty Bourbons and her demented dog Jammy Dodger to steal the infamous Custard Gun belonging to Prince Shortbread McJaffa ( Bela Lukar ). McJaff hires super sleuth Tod Doughnut( Norman Danish ) to find out what's going on and to thwart their evil plans. ( From the archives )

Drive She Said

THEME of the Week - Film Noir

Make a collage based on a black and white film noir 40's or 50's - or make one up. Could be a poster or a still from the film maybe. Have fun!

DUKW Ark

Definition from The Free Dictionary:
"Related to DUKW: amphibious vehicle. DUKW. [not an acronym] manufacturer's code for a type of military wheeled amphibious landing-craft (D means 1942, U means utility (amphibious), K means all-wheel drive, W means 2 powered rear axles."

Queuing Up for a Dinghy Ride to the Ark

Left High & Dry

The Last Ark Home

Bit of an experiment here with this one putting some of my
animal cartoons in two by two.
Here, they catch the last ark home after a night on the tiles.

Future Ark

THEME of the Week - Noah's Ark

A favourite theme of mine but wondering how others might tackle it. Feel free to use any kind of craft or container. Could be set in the future as well as the past. Have fun!

Wynken Blynken and Nod

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross ...

... to see a fine lady upon a white horse;

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

She shall have music wherever she goes.

Nurser-y Rhyme Magazine

The Empress of China

German counting rhyme fI used to sing for jump rope.

The Empress of China

née Katharina

was unfortunately much too small

to be empress. 

Then she climbed the ladder

rose further and further

all of a sudden she stopped

- and you can go. 

Little Jack Horner.

Bit of a rush-job this, because we're all off to Wales early tomorrow, so I had to use whatever I found quickly in my collage box of stuff, and luckily found the only cut-out hand in the box, which fit with the swimmer pic immediately, then felt bad thinking about cutting out a picture of the Sphinx's face to make the crust of the Christmas Pie, so used the surrounding desert and part of the head-dress instead. It made me wonder: does anyone else here feel uncomfortable/strange about using certain pictures of things/people/deities in their collage work? It happens to me almost every week!

There Was An Old Man With A Beard

A limerick I found in a book of Nursery Rhymes. See it HERE.

Nursery Crime

This is from the archives, too. This is an illustration to the album of the same name of my favourite band "Genesis" I used to listen to when I was young(er ;-)

Hey Diddle Diddle

One from the archive to start with.

THEME of the Week - Nursery Rhymes

I think we may have had this one before but always good to do again. Interpret any way you please. Old nursery rhymes or modern ones or ones you have made up! Have fun!

The Collage Man

I was in town yesterday and happened to spot this pile of recent National Geographics on a charity table in Santander of all places. I picked a couple of copies likely to inspire this weeks collage. This series of men selling pharmacuticals from a bucket piled high in Mozambique caught my eye - they even have a pair of scissors at the top neatly wedged in! This could quite easily be the handy collage man who came to my village to sell his wares. Roll rup! Roll up! get your handy scraps of paper and cuttings here!

Sunday Car-Boot Trip

Up at 7am with coffee for my semi-regular Sunday trip across town to the car-boot sale. 

City centre almost at a standstill due to Glasgow staging a European Championships Cycle Race so had to scout around for diverted bus routes. (That's Bonnie the Seal in pic - the games mascot). 

At the sale, I bought an old Polaroid camera and in the case were receipts for a 1977 Hong-Kong hotel stay plus laundry bill. On the busy streets on the way home I found a flyer for a nostalgia club night and a sticker for Glasgow's most famous chip shop The Blue Lagoon!

Cycling on holiday

Today was a nice day!
We decided spontaneously to make a day trip to Münsterland where cycling is joyful. We rent bikes and I took an e-bike for the very first time. First I had some problems - but after a while it was easy and just fantastic! It is so much fun and so relaxed to ride an e-bike that I would like to have one. We took a short break in a very nice cafe and had coffee there. Afterwards the cycle path led us along the river Werse through beautiful nature. Sun was shining, birds were singing... what a nice day it was.

The result of attending a book fair, scouring thousands of books and a sidewalk sale

"His Life"

So last weekend there were two major events I was excited to attend. The annual Newberry Library Book Fair (thousands of used books for sale...all 1/2 price on the last day!) and a Sidewalk Sale called "Henry's Hoarders Sale" from one of my favorite thrift shops. I purchased 3 books that are represented in this collage. One of them was a book of paper samples (that I used for the colorful background). One was a Taschen book of 1950s advertisements. Another was a wonderful medical book from the early 1900s. The only piece in this collage that was NOT in those books is the Barbie doll head -- that came from my precut doll head stash. The woman in the slip is actually Elizabeth Taylor as "Maggie the Cat" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But I wanted to make the woman in the collage a doll as the man I am referring to in this piece uses women as his "playthings".

Atypical ant, a typical room, Friendship Hotel, Beijing, China.

This is a bit of a cheat, as regards it fitting this week's diary theme, but here goes – we got back home yesterday after three days away, I went upstairs and found three unused 2-piece collages from last week, still in the scanner, so stuck those to an A4 sheet of paper.
There was no food readily available in the house, so I went to the chip shop to buy enough fish suppers for the family, and while waiting for my order to be prepared, went down the hill a bit to go to the second-hand bookshop, where the first thing I found was an ancient brochure for the Friendship Hotel, Beijing, in the travel books section.
Walked up the hill, we all ate our tea, then I got to work, cutting up the brochure – I noticed it had several references to 'A Typical Room', which miraculously fit with the tagline 'Atypical Antwerp' on one of the collage pieces, and put all the elements together, along with an old wrapper from a packet of Trebor Extra Strong Mints I found in my back pocket.
The whole thing is kind of confused, and lacks cohesion/focus maybe, but I think it accurately reflects my state of mind upon getting home after a long journey with the family!

Lets take a rest - actually

Today is my first day of vacation after some hard working weeks. I actually wanted to take a rest, something like sitting in my arm chair and listening to music  - but than ..... 

I woke up pretty early and went to an antiquarian who collected plenty of art and design catalogues for me. On the way back home I did some grocery because I am expecting friends for dinner and we got the idea to buy a little barbecue for the every first time. We took the grocery and the catalogues back home,  where I found no place for them in my bookshelf - so I started to sort my stuff and than I got one idea after another what I can create out of it. Now I am sitting NOT in my arm chair but in a big chaos between books, paper cutout - and groceries. It´s just 4 p.m. and I do not know where this day will end up.

PS: This chair is designed by Philip Arctander, 1940 and the catalogue, which I got from the antiquarian this morning, noted "Rare variante a haut dossier du fauteuil dit "calm""

AND this is certainly NO advertisement! Just because of our new data protection diligence.

Dairy 1993

Two pages from a collage diary I did back in 1993.

Our Boy Is Home

Have been indoors most of the day but did find this excellent sun burst sweet wrapper in the street a few days back. Seems appropriate for today's collage made from an old postcard and a film star photo ( not sure who this cowboy is with his doggy?) Yep, we had to go to the station and get our boy - who is up from London for a few days. Always good to catch up with him and hear all his news - exhibitions he's been to etc. This packet is well travelled by the looks of it. Archie is well travelled too for someone so young. He likes check shirts too! They'd love a dog but live in a flat in London so that's unlikely at the moment. He's a vegetarian and likes strawberrys too! ( How many other dubious connections can I make to this thing? )

Shopping

Just a quick one with bits from my shopping bag to start off with. I meant to pick more stuff up on my travels round town but forgot all about it! Luckily I kept some receipts from charity shop, grocers, supermarket etc. Bought three DVD's for £1 - Zombieland, Hyde Park On Hudson and another who's name escapes me. Met up with Hazel who likes to go round the town on her own ( dress shops etc. ) after an hour or so and we went in the Sainsburys to get a few bits. We are both on diets after coming back from France vastly overweight after eating too much French cheese, baguettes, pastisseries etc. We are on the low carb diet of sorts - so no potatoes or bread or pasta. All the things we love so it will be difficult! Anyway, so thats what we did and here's my poor collage which doesnt really tell you much. Not sure what Walt Disney is doing in it but refers I suppose to the lady ( or maybe a man? ) dressed up as Mickey Mouse in the High Street, giving away balloons ( donations to charity greatly received ).

THEME of the week - Collage Diary

Describe your day by way of things you find during your travels - either walking outside or just stuff from your workroom or studio. Have fun!