Some figures emerge, slumber, then reappear in my work. When they reappear they are generally quite different: in a radically different context, in different material, or with very different mood. Most of my imagery emerges from my subconscious, but I have used well known symbols from various cultures in the past.

Long ago I drew a simplified version of the flute player who appears in rock art around the Southwest USA. I did this to create a few silhouettes in wood that became a gift for my mother, and for other family.

Recently I repaired and scanned one of wooden flute players, and used this scanned image to make a couple of collages.

I have also experimented with a new material in an old cast of my draped field worker figure. And I found a home for him, lifting a fallen planet! This background is an old linoleum print that did not have enough value as a stand alone work.

So here are the Flute Player and the Field Worker: my most recent collages.

I needed to correct something about a “finished” artwork. It was really bothering me, although I wasn’t sure why. I just did not quite like it, however much I wanted to. The individual elements seemed mostly OK, but… it wasn’t working for me. So I made some changes; are these subtle changes? Or not so subtle?

Here is the Before and After my changes:

The light is probably different for these two photos, so you may find the color and contrast difficult to compare. I did mute the background pattern colors considerably. The color and contrasts on the figures is mostly the same, although a bit different where I carved away portions of both figures.

The primary changes are:

1. For the the background I muted colors & contrast, removed one distracting dimensional element. I did add a soft new element to the drawing.
2. On the left figure I removed a lot of the draper around the head & shoulders, and worked into neck & rib cage a bit.
3. On the right hand figure I reduced the size of the head, and gave him a shard of glass to hold/offer.

For me, this fixed two problems: first that the figures were did not fit well on the panel, being too large and too close to the top. And secondly the background was too dominant and distracted from the featured figures.

I like it much better now, but I won’t know if this piece is really satisfying until I live with it for some undetermined length of time!

I just answered an online question, and decided to save my own reply about mounting collage. This is a brief how-to adhere, seal, and mount paper collage work.

But first a peek at my most recent collage efforts in the studio. The first piece below is now complete. The next one is ready to assemble, but I dread taking it apart in order to glue it down. Note that all of the parts used here are my own work…

Here is the “how-to” information:

I usually use Lineco Neutral pH PVA Adhesive to attach paper to paper. I generally seal with Krylon clear sprays (there are other brands that are fine, maybe better!). You can use flat, satin, or gloss; gloss is best if you have metallic paint or glossy paper that you want to keep that way.

Heavy matte medium works well for attaching thicker papers to a sturdy watercolor or mixed media paper, but I do NOT use it for thinner papers unless I have already mounted the background paper to a backer board.

I do use heavy matte medium for attaching a background paper to various stiff mounting boards; the medium gets applied to the board rather than to the paper.

Once a finished piece is sprayed with sealant and mounted to a board, I may brush on a thinner matte or gloss medium. I seal it with at least two coats of spray first. This is best when the piece is more dimensional and I want a heavier seal, or for work that looks OK with visible brush strokes. I stick to spray for more delicate work.

BTW the trick that I was taught for mounting to sturdy art boards, masonite, wood panel, etc. is really useful. Apply a heavy gel acrylic medium (not the thinner liquid medium) to the board first, And if the paper you are attaching is NOT super thin “rice” or tissue paper spray the back of it lightly with water, then apply! IF done carefully this gives you a tiny interval of float that allows you to reposition it if necessary! It is very helpful if you are trying to line up larger pieces! There is, of course, a video on YouTube… ?

Digital Creativity for Collage

These colorful flute players were printed just for fun, but are now parts that I may use in a new work someday!

I scanned an 18″ wooden flute player that I made previously for my mother. She was very fond of Southwest imagery and history. For these new works, I printed this scan almost full size to use in the two collages above.

For these two very colorful versions, I created a digital pattern from an interesting photo. I used that to fill my flute player shape in two different colors.

When is finished? These four quite different mixed media pieces may all be finished, if I can just keep my hands OFF them! Sometimes I don’t know when to stop.

At least I have some work happening in the studio, although much of it is continuation and completions. I am using older works as parts, or collage elements, and then spending a lot of time on presentation. It all feels so unimportant, but I think I need to persist in order to get to something more significant. Nothing is coming easily just now.

When you accumulate many bits & pieces, many partially finished art attempts, duplicate images, and early artworks you no longer love, turn to the art of collage!

Of course it is a fuzzy line between mixed media art and the art of collage. When I layer a few embellishments onto a drawing, photo, or painting, that doesn’t feel like collage. Maybe I have made a collage when the focus of the work is actually made up of multiple parts? Or at least when the context is critical to the piece and that is built from many parts?

I am not good at determining firm distinctions in art categories. For one thing, I don’t see the point of doing so! I will leave that to others. Here are some recent efforts, collage, mixed media, or other:

Note that the first two images are two photos of the same piece. The first with the work placed on the studio floor, the second with the work placed in a window. This piece is intentionally translucent, but not necessarily to be backlit through a fly screen as above! The gridded mesh is NOT part of the artwork…

A bit of finish work can turn an older drawing into a new piece, and an older extra part the wrong size can be repurposed in a brand new concept. At left I embellished a drawing for a concept that ended up very differently, and at right is a beginning of a new work which may acquire a few more moons: