Buy Now - $45 - 5x5in. - collage - "Frumption"

Someone suggested making these really big, but I love how small and intimate they are.

Buy Now - $45 - 5x5in. - collage - "Spastidious"

Buy Now - $30 - 4x3.5in. - collage - "Fall Apart"

Buy Now - $30 - 4x3.5in. - collage - "Put Together"

Here are a couple of small collages. I don't know why I felt before that I had to go all the way to the edges of my substrate. I like it so much better with the white border, and even being able to cross it sometimes. I had a lot of fun with these!
 

Borders

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "On the Fringes"

All at once I realized that I had tons of collage paper with interesting edges. So I started playing around with the borders of my designs, and I kind of LOVE it!

 

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Limitless"

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Peripheral"

Being

 

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Ambition"

Buy Now - $45 - 5x5in. - collage - "Oversensitive"

Love and Sushi

 

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "My Deformed Heart"

I make my collage paper with all sorts of techniques, and quite random results. I enjoy the unpredictability of it. Actually I think that's the main thing I like about this new direction, vs realism.

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Saw His Sushi Move"

Putting little bits of text into my collages gives me great ideas for titles. I just read through the random pieces of sentences and see if there's anything that strikes a chord for the composition. It's fun!

Darks

 

Buy Now - $45 - 5x5in. - collage - "Undercurrents"

Buy Now - $45 - 7x5in. - collage - "Dark Corners"

Landforms

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Mountains"

I'm not a big landscape painter, but I am surely inspired by my surroundings. And we are surrounded by mountains here in Missoula. They are completely covered in snow at the moment, so here's a little made up color, just for fun. : )

 

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Buttes"

Hide and Seek

Buy Now - $45 - 5x5in. - collage - "Hidden in Layers"

A gal I follow on Instagram said this recently:

"In my artistic work, listening to the voice of the image is a guiding principle for me. In life it is similar and this listening, questioning and waiting is for me like a space that I want to give so that life comes to me, nestles in my heart and shares its quiet words and songs with me."

Her name is Eva Kalien. I think her words are as beautiful as her art.

 

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Rediscovering"

Memories

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Hide the Candy"

I was asked recently by an art student if I could talk about my art and how it relates to memories. I thought this rather specific, as I haven't really mentioned it. But it got me thinking. Obviously I have them (memories) and yes, anything I look at tends to evoke them. But I don't usually create art with a particular memory in mind (or message, for that matter, which almost flunked me out of art school). That said, I often have an emotional reaction as I'm creating, and afterwards. And my titles hint at this. But I expect the viewer to have their own unique reaction, and mine is no more important than that.

 

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Getting There"

Quiet

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Still"

I've mentioned before that I often do something I call "research." These days that mostly means getting on Pinterest or Instagram and collecting images I like for ideas and inspiration. Pinterest is especially useful for this because it's easy to collect and organize those images. I often look back through what I've collected and search for patterns. What color combinations am I picking over and over? What's a theme I like but haven't tried myself? I even sometimes copy a piece (for myself) to learn HOW they did it.

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Improv"

Warm and Cool

 

Buy Now $50 - 7x5in. - collage - "Shooting for the Moon"

Buy Now $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Into the Furnace"

I'm keeping these next 3 collages for myself and bought these inexpensive frames online to display them. I just think they look so great in frames!!

Posca Markers

 

Buy Now - $35 - 4x4in. - collage - "Passages"

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Stay Within the Lines"

For these orange lines I used a POSCA acrylic paint marker. I got a small set and then ordered a few extra colors. They make great lines and go over other colors pretty well (some better than others).

Connections

 

Buy Now - $45 - 6x4in. - collage - "Connections"

This is a post about the nicest person in the world. Her name is Sheryl and she GAVE me a scanner! And a fabulous one at that. This is my first try with it, and I can't even begin to tell you how accurate it is. Wow. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Sheryl!!!

Colors

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Bamboozled"

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "A Cool Pool"

School Days

This first one reminds me of growing up in the 80's and early 90's for some reason.

Buy Now - $50 - 5x7in. - collage - "Teen Spirit"

And this one reminds me of an ant farm, and ants in general. Out in nature I find them in long, long lines, one after another, carrying all sorts of things. I was fascinated with them as a child. I don't see very many ants here in Montana.

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Follow the Leader"

Paths

I think I mentioned that I have been doing abstract collage for a few months, and so I'm ahead by quite a few. So while I have a backlog I'll be posting 2 a day. I'm not actually sure how long each one takes to do, since I'm always working on several at once. It seems like a few come together quickly, but most are on my table for days. At any rate, I am still having SO MUCH FUN!!!

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Finding Your Way"

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Abrupt Shift"

Feelings

Today I heard from an old friend and art hero, Jill Carver. She said she teaches something very similar to my "art is a balance between rhythm and variety" idea, but she calls it "unity and variety." Not only do I think that is a fabulous word for it, but it's great to hear that other people (and of such stature!) are thinking the same things. : )

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place"

Another friend wrote and asked me to talk about a particular piece and how it follows this idea. In this next one, I would say the rhythms/unities are: the dominant light value - overall high key aspect; the repeating pink bits, orange bits, and green; the mostly low saturation, and mostly hard lines/rectangular shapes. The variety can be seen in: the different sizes of shapes, the sudden thin, curvy lines at the bottom, the small bits of saturation, and the one small, dark piece. I'm sure there are more things. I'm not great at analyzing art in general. For me it's mostly a feel thing.

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Essence"

Earth and Sky

I've been marinating for a while on an idea that occurred to me a while back. It's not fully formed in my head, but I thought I'd share it because it has helped me. The idea is that art is a balance between rhythm and variety. In music this is easy to explain - the underlying beat is the rhythm, and on top of that is the variety - long notes, short notes; hi, low; different kinds of sounds. In visual art the rhythm is the repeated bits - like a color that is repeated, or a kind of edge, a certain value, etc. The variety is all the stuff that's different - big shapes, small shapes; curves, straight lines; colors; etc.

The reason I find this helpful is because when I learned about variety I thought that was IT. But  if everything is different, you get chaos. Having some stuff be regular gives the piece structure. Art can range from lots of rhythm and little variety, to the opposite. And there are a million ways to do that.

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Half Moon"

Buy Now - $45 - 4x6in. - collage - "Half Moon"

More Minis

Buy Now - $30 - 4x4in. - collage - "Psychadelic"

Buy Now - $30 - 4x4in. - collage - "Orderly"

Buy Now - $30 - 4x4in. - collage - "Far Out"

Minis

Here are a few smaller collages - 4x4in. The process is the same but the feel is a little more intimate.

Buy Now - $30 - 4x4in. - collage - "Right, Again"

Buy Now - $30 - 4x4in. - collage - "Hills and Valleys"

Buy Now - $30 - 4x4in. - collage - "Tying Knots"