Even more deconstruction and reconstruction

Last May, I wrote about the collage above and my struggle with whether it should be vertical or horizontal. Well, it doesn't matter any more. Why? It's been cut up and reworked it into two new collages - below - in the Out On A Limb series.

An interesting thing happened with the top section of the collage, the pressed leaf from an early 20th century school notebook crumbled. I had hoped to keep bits of it, along with the tape strips that held it, but the whole thing fell apart. Then, when lifting the collage off its mat board substrate, the notebook page started to wrinkle. I liked the grungy look and decided not to even try to flatten it.

Yes, these are very autumnal. Spring images coming soon! Honest.  

© Out on A Limb: 27
mixed-media collage: antique endpaper, vintage notebook page
(1918 notebook of Lillian Mary Shackett) and illustration (Birds of New York: Part 2,
State Museum of New York), recycled catalog cover, watercolor, ink,
 acrylic sealer, acrylic varnish. 5"x5" on cradled, hardwood panel. Price: $75.

© Out On A Limb: 28
mixed-media collage: antique endpapers; vintage library date due card
and teletype operator manual and illustration (1990 Audubon calendar);
recycled catalog covers; watercolor, ink, acrylic sealer, acrylic varnish.
5"x5" on cradled, hardwood panel. Price: $75.

Out On A Limb: 20

© Out On A Limb: 20 (2012)

mixed-media collage: antique illustration

 (Birds of New York, Vol. 2, New York State Museum, 1914);

 recycled catalog covers and wrapping paper; watercolor; ink; marker; 

acrylic sealer; acrylic varnish. 6" x 6" on birch panel. $85 (SOLD)

Talk about a struggle. Aieeee. The stormy main section of the background was created with the intention of using another pair of birds - one color, one black-and-white - and some text. I cut, repositioned, painted, cut some more, colored, repositioned again. But it wasn't working. So I set it aside and continued other collages in the series.

Then, I came across these cool falcons perched on rocks. Perfect. After additional background layers and a fair amount of painting on both the rocks and feathers, it was finished. The absence of leaves and trees makes it a departure from the rest of the series - and although it is numbered 20, it was completed after 24.

So, it's back to work!

So, I've been back in the studio this week and after cleaning up and reorganizing - well, on a small scale, the bigger clean-up comes mid-February - I started on another eight collages in the Out On A Limb series. They're evolving so fast that these photos - shot on Thursday - are outdated already.

I'm still combining antique & vintage images, as well as black-and-white & color images on each piece. These are being created on box-like boards just like the last five, except that these are birch and are 6" x 6" instead of 5"x5." That may sound like a minor change in size but it is HUGE when it comes to selecting images. I quickly figured out that the vibrant Victorian scraps used in the previous round are too small now.

There are plenty of black-and-white images in my stash that work but I had to look elsewhere for color ones. Luckily, I found more Singer songbird trade cards. I also nabbed a copy of Birds of New York, which was published in 1910 (Vol. 1) and 1914 (Vol. 2) by the New York State Museum. It's beautifully illustrated with painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. I got it for an unbelievably great price but after some research, I discovered that Fuertes was/is world-renowned. Gulp. I may not be able to bring myself to use it.

Happily, I lucked into a shabby copy of the original 1961 edition of Golden Press' Birds of the World for a mere $8 at a used-book sale. The over-sized book is chock-full of vivid paintings by Arthur Singer. But a little more research and what do I find? You got it. Singer is a renowned bird painter, too. Sigh. Stay tuned to see how this plays out ...