Number art complete

I finally made a decision about how I wanted to treat the number collages from my last post and I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome (except the part about it taking FOREVER to dry).

I chose canvas versus the wood blocks because I liked the treatment I gave the bird spinner collages. I had initially thought that I was going to use wood blocks with vintage fabric or wallpaper adhered to the side, but thought that the grunginess of the collages deserved a more rough treatment.

The canvas is coated in 3 colors of walnut ink, spattered with black paint and then stamped. The stamps are actually stencils that I stamped with ink and then pressed into the canvas. The print is adhered to the canvas with Mod Podge. I'm considering spraying the print with a gloss acrylic to give it a glass-like appearance but it's not something I want to play with and then not like. I like it so far and don't want to ruin what I've done. I may spray it with a UV protectant to protect the print, however.

When I finish the set I will have them available for sale up on Etsy. They will be a limited edition of 50 and will sell for $85.

New art!!

Since I won't be bringing my location artwork to the Vail Arts Festival at the end of June, I'm really pushing myself to make new artwork so I have a fairly full booth. I don't think I've ever created this much new artwork in a year and it's really exciting. I've created a lot of retro inspired pieces, which I love, but I also am finally getting around to creating collages that I've had rolling around in my head for awhile, like the collage I posted a few days ago: "Room to Breathe".

The titles are fairly simple for these collages: "One for the Money", "Two for the Show" and "Three to Get Ready". They're 12 x 12 and I'm undecided if I will mount them to canvas like I did the bird spinners or mount them to museum blocks and edge them with vintage wallpaper. I'll post photos of the final product, whatever I decide!

After the scan: Getting started on (and finishing) a collage

After I finish the scanning process, it's time to get started! As I scan the photos I make note of all of them and try to figure out placement and size of the images. If it's a wedding collage and I have individual photos of the bride and groom, I try to put those in the corners as anchors. If it's an anniversary, I try to find photos of the couple together throughout the years and use those as corner photos. Unlike a puzzle, I start from the edges and work in rather than from the center and work out. There really isn't a formula to how I work, but there are things that I find I do repeatedly, like using certain photos as corner anchors. Again, it really all depends on what I'm given by the client.

Above you can see how I began the 70th birthday collage. There were several images that I liked of her alone, but decided on the portrait type image to anchor the lower left corner. It had nice cool colors and blended well in with the background. Most of the photos of her were in black and white, so I thought a color photo would balance out the background nicely. I then kind of worked around, placing other images of her by herself in somewhat of a timeline, then decided to use the family image to anchor the upper right corner. 

I had initially started to fill in small photos of her extended family, then found this photo of all of the family together and decided to place that one and remove the smaller pictures so it wouldn't be too crowded. The more photos I'm given, the more I have to shrink things to get them all to fit and more times than not it ends up looking more messy than a unified whole. The elimination process is a difficult one if I'm not given a whole lot of direction about the importance of the pictures by the client.

This was the first draft that I submitted to the client for approval. (Actually I added one more photo after I took this screen shot, but this is pretty close to the first draft.) It turned out that my decision to try to consolidate by eliminating family wasn't the best choice and that she would've rather have had less photos of her mom and dad together and more photos of the family because the family was very important to her mom. So I shrunk some of the photos and removed two to make room for the individual photos. She also requested that I add the word "Candy" to the collage because that is her mom's nickname. Words are always easy to add after the fact because they can be blended so as not to interfere with the photos. Adding more photos (or taking away photos that I've used in key places) is more difficult because I have to shift things around so as not to leave holes.

So...after making the changes, this was the final collage: 

Not too drastically different from the first proof that I showed the client, but tweaked enough that she was extremely pleased with the result. I told her to let me know what her mother's reaction is to it because I always like to hear feedback. On several occasions I've heard that the gift has moved people to tears, and that's probably the highest compliment I could ever receive. I enjoy what I do immensely and that I can bring joy to others makes it very worthwhile. I think it's so great to be able to take photos that otherwise would rarely see the light of day and give them life again.

If you're interested in having a custom collage done, please visit my website for more information!

Thanks to Kat Christopherson for allowing me the pleasure of working with her on this collage for her mother's birthday.

"Room to Breathe"

 A little break from the custom collage blog (more tomorrow on that) to announce a new piece. I titled this one "Room to Breathe". I had this idea pop in my mind of doing a collage that was almost entirely white with just pieces of images popping through, so you would really have to look closely at the image. So many of my collages are very dark intense colors, so I like that this is a departure from that.

I got the idea while I was driving down a hill and it was a beautiful day and there were trees arching over the street. I looked up through the windshield and saw the sky overhead and because the hill was somewhat steep, it kind of felt like I was falling. The idea of the all white collage just popped into my head. I wrote it down and tucked it away until I finally got a chance to sit down and hash it out. Like all of my collages, it started with a vague idea and I just kept adding to it until it seemed complete. I'm undecided if I will add more to it with ink stencils or if I will leave it as it is once it's printed.

Beginning a custom collage

As I promised, today's blog is about how I start a custom collage. I just finished working on a custom collage for a 70th birthday and I'm going to document the steps I take to create a collage in the next few blogs.

THE SCANNING

More often than not I receive prints rather than digital images. I prefer people allow me to do the scanning rather than do it themselves because it allows me to enlarge photos if necessary rather than using software to do the enlarging. It also gives me a chance to leave in pieces of photos that I think give a collage an artistic quality that others may crop out: like the white borders around prints from the 40s-60s or writing on photos.

I usually ask people to give me some sort of idea what the importance of the photos are, or group them together in some way so I can make a better judgement of what to leave in and what will be okay to take out. I try to keep in as much as I can, but usually I find unnecessary repetition. 10 pictures of Mom & Dad through the years I will include all 10; 10 pictures of Mom & Dad in the last 2 years I'll probably keep 3 or 4. That's not to say that I don't want people to send all 10 of Mom & Dad. It's better to have too many to choose from than try to fill space with very few images.

This client separated the photos into 4 bags: her mom growing up, her mom's parents and siblings, her mom and dad, and her mom's children and their families.

I took the photos out of their bags but kept them in their respective categories when I scanned. You can see that there is a big range of ages of photos, which is great. I know that not everyone can get photos from way back, but the older photos definitely give a collage character. The client also gave me a newspaper article that was about her mom being crowned "Miss Fairwood Park" and 2 photos from an Elvis concert. Very cool.

THE ELIMINATION PROCESS

I always scan in everything a client gives me because I never know what I'm going to use and what I'm going to keep out, unless there are 2 photos that are very similar. In that case I will pick the best and choose not to scan one of them. I only charge for the scans of the photos I end up using for the collage. In the 70th birthday collage this is what I scanned and what I ended up using:

There were 16 photos of mom growing up. I used 14.

There were 5 photos of mom's parents and her siblings. I used 4.

There were 22 photos of mom and dad. I used 13.

There were 10 photos of the entire family. I used all 10. 

Overall: 41 photos.

It was a constant elimination process to decide what to leave in and what to leave out, and as you'll see in the next blog, very few photos go in one place and stay there throughout the duration of the collage creation.

Just what I was afraid of

I came back from the Estes Park workshop excited, revitalized, ready to take on the internet world and become the master of my blog, website, and social media sites.

Well...

I made some updates to my website. I'm excited about those changes and proud of the work that I did. It still needs work, but it's getting there.

My social media I've been keeping up on fairly well. I re-did my Facebook profile and am constantly keeping up with Twitter. Not a lot of problems there.

My blog....

Yeah.

Last post: May 8th. Today's date: May 18th. I promised myself I would write 3 times a week. That has not happened. I've been busy preparing for art fairs and doing custom work and the blog has fallen by the side. Not to say I haven't been preparing to write my blog. Oh no. I've been keeping track of the steps I've been going through completing this custom collage. I will be finishing that blog series. And I should've been posting it and writing it as I go instead of "preparing" to write it. What am I preparing for? Just write it!

So I have some work to do. The blog is just not happenin' for me and I need to figure out what I need to do to make it less of a chore in my mind and more of something fun that I enjoy. When I actually do it, it's not as bad as it is in my head, but for some reason when that iCal alarm rings reminding me I need to do it, something in my brain is like "NO!!!" like a dentist's appointment or something. It's NOT that bad.

So Wednesday is my next blogging day. I will be continuing on with my custom collage series. And I'm going to tell my brain to shut up.

How do you create a custom collage?

First, a side note:

My to-do list since I got back from Colorado has been getting increasingly longer as I realize that the art fair next weekend in Wayzata isn't going to prepare for itself, and I don't want to procrastinate at all on preparing. I've gotten into bad habits in the past of staying up very late at night the night before getting everything ready and I'd much rather have a restful night's sleep. So unfortunately, the WordPress blog is going on the back burner for a bit, but the blogs will not!

Today I'm going to write a little about the process I go through of creating a custom collage. You can find out more about my custom work by visiting my website.

My job:

What I love best about doing custom collages is that I get to tell a story through the items that I'm given. I can always tell people who cherish their stories (or the stories of loved ones) by the photos/items that I've been given. The thoughtfulness really comes out in the package that I receive. I enjoy custom work so very much because each collage is like a puzzle. I never know what kind of photos and other materials I'm going to get and opening that package is always exciting!

After I get all the materials together I do three things:

1) Sort

2) Scan (if necessary)

3) Start!

1) I look through every photo and item that I've been sent and determine what will work as a focus image, what kind of story I can tell with the photos and what needs to be left out if I've been given too much. This is the best part, especially for collages of 50th anniversaries and milestone birthdays, like 70 or 90. I love old photos!!

2) This step is pretty self-explanatory. I have an Epson scanner and I go through and scan all of the items in. I don't do any photo correction during the scanning process, only enlarging if necessary.

3) And away I go! Starting with the focus image, I begin layering the images. How I begin the placement stems largely from the composition of the photos that I've been given (individuals, group shots, portraits, etc.).

Deconstructing the collage:

Above is a collage I did for a local MN couple for Valentine's Day. I was given the instruction that they loved my collages where everything is very blended and not immediately apparent, which is my favorite style of collaging. While I always enjoy working every collage that I do, one of the hardest tasks is trying to bridge the style of collage that I gravitate towards and the style of collage that my clients like. For me a collage goes together a little easier if my preferred style matches what the client wants, and in this instance, it did.

This client gave me an excellent mix of photos of them, photos of their favorite places, and other items like a handwritten note. In my opinion, the collages turn out the best when they are a diverse mix of items rather than just photos of people. Though I've been very pleased with how collages have turned out with only photos of people, my personal preference is to have a nice blend of photos of people with photos of things and if possible, other items like tickets, programs, newspaper articles, stickers, notes, etc.

As you can see in this collage, I used the corners of the collage for focus images of the couple, and then spread the other images throughout. I generally do this because while the center image is the main thing that you see, I want your eye to easily move around the collage, taking in all the corners. By using larger images throughout rather than just in the center, your eye takes in the piece as a whole composition at first glance and not just a center photo with other photos around it. If there is every any text included, as there is in this collage, I blend it in so that it will be readable but not overpower the other photos.

Coming up soon.....

I've just started work on a custom collage for a 70th birthday and will be documenting the process as I go. You'll be able to see the whole process from beginning to end in a blog coming up soon. 

Blog about blogs

I was hoping to have a new home for my blog today and then write here about the switch, but unfortunately it requires a little more time than I can put in today. I initially was going to just use a free blog from WordPress, but after learning about how WordPress.org works and that I could add it to part of my website, it just seemed to make more sense. Though it will require a little more work learning about coding, I think it's something that I can accomplish. I hope to have it up by Friday so I can announce it here!

Making changes

The workshop in Estes Park was excellent. I got lots of good information about how to increase my online presence, but more importantly, I met some very awesome artists from all over the country. The energy in the room was amazing; so many people trying so hard to make their businesses succeed. It was very inspiring. As those of you who have actually read my blogs know, I struggle with what to write about A LOT because I always thought about all I should be writing about is what's going on with my art. New pieces I've made, shows I've applied to, etc. NOT TRUE! I got a whole list of ideas of what I should write about for my blog and I've very excited to start applying them.

I also got some great tips about my Facebook and Twitter profiles and have started applying what I learned to my Facebook right away. Having two Facebook profiles was getting to be quite difficult to keep up with so I decided to whittle it down to one and just clean up shop. I had so many stupid application invites, almost 120 of them that I went through and finally got rid of. Some of that stuff is fun, but there's already so much to keep up with on Facebook that having a Lil' Green Patch and some hatching egg thing and whatever else is just overkill. No offense to anyone who sends me any of that stuff, but I won't accept it unless it's either REALLY funny or REALLY useful/cool. I've got enough to do without getting sucked in to quizzes like "What Steel Magnolias character are you?". 

So from now on, you will see some different things going on with my blog, and possibly see a switch as I try to learn more about WordPress and how it might be a better fit for me (also a workshop suggestion). 

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!

I have not forgotten, I'm biding my time

I'm VERY excited for the artist's workshop on building a better web presence! I have not forgotten to blog, I've just been pretty busy preparing to go to CO (where I am now) and didn't want to write a blog about nothing in particular. I'm saving today's blog (yes I know I'm blogging today but it's not anything huge...) for tomorrow when I know I'll have something informative to say.

Here's a little something that I noted on my Twitter that popped in my head while I was watching the wing move (I luckily got a window seat!) when we were preparing to land. The mechanics don't move the wing THAT much, but it makes such a huge difference in how the plane flies and how the wind reacts to the wing. I thought about how our lives are like that. Sometimes just the smallest changes can really make a difference in how we fly, or as someone pointed out on Twitter, how we crash! Little things really can make big differences.