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.

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.

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. 

Once again, no big news

Still working on solidifying my art fair schedule for the season, and the Saint Paul Art Crawl will be upon me sooner than I'm prepared for!

Getting started on new work and keeping up with custom collage business.

Speaking of custom collages....Mother's Day is coming up!

Consider giving your Mom the gift of memories with a custom collage. Go to www.customcollagesbyinkblots.com to find out more info. :)

on the horizon

I'm not very good at coming up with titles for these things....you'd think something creative would just pop in, but as the day goes by, I'd rather take a nap than be creative!

So what this title refers to is all the new things that have either already happened or are in the works!

I just got my copy of the latest issue of  The Knot Minnesota, a local bridal magazine, that I have an advertisement for my custom work in. After all this time not doing much graphic design, I'm very proud of how professional it looks! Thanks a ton to Judy Bialka for allowing me to use the collage I did for her to give to Dwayne and Joyce Archuleta as a wedding gift in the ad. It's truly one of the best examples of what a wedding collage can be and I hope it brings me more custom business! I truly love doing the custom work, each piece is so different and a complete surprise when it's done!

I'm currently working on completing an order of collage cards for Prairie Stone Pharmacy, a part of Lunds in Northeast in Minneapolis. They are interested in possibly carrying a riverfront collage should I ever do one. I have had several requests over the past couple of years, so I think it's time to do it. Of course -4 degrees is no temperature to go out to take pictures, so it might be a couple of months before it gets done, but it gives me time to gather together a list of what I want to photograph.

I also have plans to start work on my second night Minneapolis collage soon as well. I already have several pictures taken, but the neon on Bunkers was out last time it was decent weather before Christmas (40 degrees!!) and so I'm waiting for that to get fixed!

Last but not least, I'm considering applying for Art in the Market, an art fair that is happening every 2nd Saturday at the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis. I'm not 100% sure just yet, but I will make my decision soon! Check out my schedule page on my website to find out if I get juried in.