Run Away

This one is called Run Away Art and is a hand cut and paste collage.  The two background houses are rubber stamps from Teesha Moore- I love the house shape and she did a whole set of these.  The background is a piece of wallpaper border.  I do love that quote and have found it to be so true.  I remember some time back someone had said to me in passing- you sure seem to like subdued colors.  I do sometimes but I also love explosive color- I was right there in the 60s when all that wild stuff was going on- Peter Max and that Beatles movie Yellow Submarine come to mind.  So this one is a nod to that time of my life.  When was the last time you ran away into your art?

Trouble

This cut and paste collage is titled Trouble at the Coffee Shop. This makes me laugh.   The background is an altered photograph of mine.  The bodies of the bird boys are paper dolls from the 50s maybe?  I added the bird heads for fun.  Lots of story possibilities with this one.  When we lived in Minneapolis I witnessed some scenes like this at some coffee shops- though not with bird-headed boys.

Good Fellow

Sometimes it is important to just have fun.  This hand cut and paste collage was just that for me...FUN.  In fact this piece started a journal exchange sometime back with Julie Takacs, a wonderful collage artist in New York. http://collageclearinghouse.blogspot.com/  We both got busy and have since talked about starting that up again.  I think it is great fun to make up stories.  John Arbuckle is a wonderful mixed media artist and often has a story to go with his pieces. http://artjuvenation.blogspot.com/
I think one of the things that I was so tired of when teaching in a university art department was the use of "ArtSpeak".  I am not one for pretense and that is what it seemed like to me.  Also there was a lack of fun and joy with several of the professors- very serious and many students found that intimidating.  It's OK to have fun and in fact for me- it's the sheer joy of creating that keeps me coming back to my studio everyday.  So go to your studio and make stuff and have some fun with it!

Gleam of Humour

More fun with the romance novel line clips-  This hand cut and paste collage has a walnut ink background.  I haven't worked with that for a while- I made a lot of sheets some time back and thought it was time to use them.

That is Good

This is a hand cut and paste collage.  The background is a scrap of a water-colored leaf print.  The three figures are from a rubber stamp from Teesha Moore.  The text is from a romance novel-I got one at our public library's book sale some time back- it's proven to be a great resource for titles and themes.  I have no idea what the story was about as I have just opened randomly and cut out a line.

Gift of Fantasy

I loved this quote from Albert so much I had to do a collage.  This was great fun and very different from my usual way of working.  I like the old perspective engraving and it seemed like a stage set to me.  I also had fun playing with scale in this one. If you click on the image it takes a little bit but it gets bigger.
I wish you all a new year full of happiness, good health and of course lots of art.  Speaking of- I have some projects calling to me now!