Three Recent Collages, the end of 2016
three-laps
flight
telephone-game
Haven't posted any collage in a while, but I worked on these three pieces, on-and-off for a bit. I bought a handful of random magazines from my local library, and some scrap cloth, to work in the traditional way. The usual image resources: Architecture magazines, National Geographic, things like that. I wound up working more on a computer than I'd intended, but scanned the cloth too, rather than use readymade assets.
This piece started out on paper, cut and paste. After, I scanned it in and added a few little touches to see what it would do. The yellow glowing 'halo' over the taller figure, and the blur of colored cloth at the very top are both 'in post'. I did do some cleanup editing as well, hopefully not to distraction.
This piece was done entirely on computer, using a mix of vintage photos, art and cloth. Overall, I had to do very little manipulation to get a look I was pleased with. As you can probably tell, the bottom section of the picture fits to the top part to make a complete image. the areas with color, and the 'hair' on the women are all replacements with scanned fabric. There are some missing spots, due to miss-processing the photo or wear, that I thought about fixing, but decided to leave in, to avoid too much manipulation. I think this is a fun piece, but ... the editing over of their clothes is probably too clever. A better step to rebuilding skill than a final piece.
This one mixes some of my own photos with other found images. Reminds me a lot of a mid-1990s CD cover, when digital image work was a new and badly deployed tool. It isn't very good. I do like the composition, and sense of depth a bit, but as an image I don't think it works.
Overall, 2016 has been a good one for me creatively. That these three pieces aren't my favorites of the year isn't important. Along with these collages, I've written more and created more art for myself than I have in many years.
One of my FLIM Springfield posts was syndicated by the AVClub.com, I got another article accepted into the Atomic Elbow wrestling 'zine, and I got to perform live a few times too! I'm hopeful that 2017 will be even more productive.