Collage- The start of my journey and how I do it

How I started working in collage, and how I do what I do:

Collage is one my favorite medium - or challenge to expression. Done with a few tools and materials, and endless possibilities within the pages of magazines, catalogs, and junk mail.

My tools are: A substrate like a cardboard or canvas, magazines, craft knife, and glue stick.

I first discovered the potential of magazine paper when I was given a stack of magazines that someone couldn’t bear to throw away or recycle. It was called “Victoria”, and is probably defunct now. The pictures were mainly in pastel shades, and the designs were all old-world charm, curlicues, and curves.

Just like the former owner of these magazines, I could not bring myself to cut or tear out the pages- I just marveled at the pictures, or read agony aunt columns and elaborate baking recipes.

But once I got over that hurdle, I realized I had a veritable Pandora’s box of colors in paper that I could use in my “paintings”. My collage journey had just begun.

At first I drew shapes on the colors of the magazine pages I liked, and cut them with scissors.

I learnt that I got better control when I cut out most of the page as close to the desired shape as possible, and moved the paper instead of the scissors.

I use very basic shapes in my designs: Long triangles, or spikes, curved parallels, squares, circles, strips.

I made abstract portraits using these shapes, and these were among the first of my pieces that were sold.

 “Japanese lady” (the image is not very clear), but this was my first sale in my first solo exhibit.

  “Flowers in her hair”,

  “The Belle of the Ball”

I began to use my own paintings as backgrounds, and created geometrical abstracts.

 “The March” This was our most-loved piece, and it graces the home of a good friend.

 “The Wreath” is made almost entirely with long triangle shapes.

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” Dragonflies”

Substrates are another matter, or sometimes it doesn’t even matter. The above piece, which I sometimes call “Dragonflies”, is actually painted on a piece of foamboard. It was chosen to be featured on the calendar brought out by Peninsula Behavioral Health in Knoxville, TN in 2005.

There was a family-owned store in Morristown, TN- Classic Creations that did my framing for the first year that I started showing in galleries. Vicki and I spoke for hours, both standing on either side of the counter in the small store. I was painting a lot, and custom framing was getting expensive.

Rose Center in Morristown gave me a dozen or more frames at a pittance, and we decided we would start framing our own.

We learnt what went under the glass beneath the paintings. My husband said it would be quite easy to cut mats provided we had the right tools, so we ended up investing in a mat cutter.  

Soon, he did all the matting, and I was the trusted helper to hold the steel ruler so he could cut the sharp bevel edges of the mat. The only condition was that I was stay very quiet (this year's resolution), and not to discuss with him the choice of mat color, or the size of the allowance around the piece. Everything had to be predetermined by me, and he would cut the mat to my specifications.

I was thus left with odd-size pieces of matboard and foamboard and sometimes even glass.

This was the perfect square piece of foamboard and as I love the square shape for most of my painting, I got down to work, and “Dragonflies” was started. The plumeria were painted in colored pencils on Bristol board, and attached. The dragonflies were cut out of the inner liner of a wedding invitation card.