LAW 151: The Anatomy of a Collage

The way i approach the creation of a collage has changed significantly since i created the 52 Weeks series. There are many reasons for the changes that have occurred, first and probably foremost, with time and practice my art has matured. Certainly the space i am working in has changed, as in, it has gotten much smaller, and it is shared use space. I can no longer leave a collage on my work table for a week at a time auditioning pieces.

Trajectory, 5.17.18

 So, i no longer simply page through folder after folder looking at material waiting for the inspiration angel to strike. No more waiting for that aha moment when a narrative builds itself around disparate imagery.

The process i am now using stems from the work i did with the altered  book project, Never Dine With A Dino. Please see LAW 144 for more about this project.

Using imagery from just one source, in this case the work of Oleg Tselkov narrows and refines the process even further.

I start by pre-selecting a color palette. This involves choosing between 10 and 20 whole or relatively whole pages in a specific color range; usually grey/black tones and either a warm or cool range as well as a limited amount of contrast color. At this point i also usually choose a texture palette, with Tselkov that is either an airbrush smooth, or his beautiful, crackly, painterly style.

Vortex, layer one

At this point i have already reinforced the corners and edges of the book board as well as gessoed the front and back surfaces.

The next step is to create the background. This is the most random element of the process, as well as the one that really develops the overall composition of the piece. Literally i start with a randomly chosen page, start cutting it into strips and triangles and start gluing them onto the board.

Since my intention is to not frame these pieces i am very careful to wrap the imagery around onto the back of the  board. As if i was painting the edges of a canvas. Years of book making come in handy here. I finish all the corners with a "library corner". I have always preferred this technique to the mitered corner. Although bulkier, a library corner is far more durable.

Vortex, complete

A note on adhesives. On a boat, living on the water, absolutely none of them work very well. I go back and forth between liquid glues, which i really do not like, to glue sticks, and back and....

Which ever i am using i always end up taping the edges of every piece that wraps around onto the back. And yes, i always always always use pressure.

Once the background layer is complete, i document that and usually stop for the day, sometimes, but not very often a piece will come together in one sitting. It usually takes a couple of days to finish one of these pieces.

Witness, layer one

I keep the cut pieces from previous collages, you can never know when you are going to need that little curvy bit of pink that was trimmed from something else. Yes ultimately i will discard the scraps, actually they all go into the bin of scraps to become hand made paper. Waste not.

I always look at these pieces from every point of view. I almost always start from a portrait perspective, but turn and work with the composition from every angle.

Witness, complete

Any questions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

More later,

gail