September 2011: Collage Bits & Bytes

Mary Delany, Detail of Passion Flower, Paper Collage, 1777

First Love Blooms in Molly Peacock’s Paper Garden

If you’ve read my blog: Unearthing Molly Peacock’s Paper Garden, you’ll know how inspiring her book is for those of us struggling to make an art career for ourselves late in life. Having just finished reading […]

Collage Tip #8: Collaging A Dream Journal

Dreams make the perfect subject matter for collaging; their surreal (unreal) quality can give you a great jumping-off point for creating art.

Why bother collaging your dreams (or nightmares)? Well, a seemingly random series of images coming together in our mind to form events that don’t initially make sense, might suddenly if we […]

Vision Board Spotlight: Ruth Watt, Beautiful Dreamer

Ruth Watt, Vision Board, Collage, November 2010, 16 x 20 inches

I had the pleasure of meeting Ruth Watt for the first time at Dragonfly Dreams studio in Richmond, Ontario. At first she was unsure of how to tackle her vision board but slowly through the process she discovered a way to make […]

Defying My Comfort Zone: A Plein Air Class with David Kearn

In this journal page I have used magazine fragments of drawings and paintings including one of Vincent Van Gogh’s drawings in the top centre and right side of the page.

After months of collaging, I decided to try my hand at something new. I love to add bits of imagery from drawings and […]

Molly Peacock’s Book Unearths Mary Delany’s Paper Garden

With several projects on the go, I haven’t had much time to read this year. Even still, I’m slowly ploughing through several books. One is Molly Peacock’s: The Paper Garden; the true story of eighteenth century artist Mary Delany, inventor of her very own form of collage (or “paper mosaick”): “Flora Delanica”.

I discovered […]

Journal Page Highlight: The Lost Boy

Today, I’d like to share some thoughts about a page I sort of … well, “lost”. As much as I wanted to include it in my current series of works in the Atrium Show, it won’t be there. Sometimes a precious page may be ruined when it gets glued down in an awkward fashion […]

Vision Board Spotlight: Maggie Jordan’s High Flying Visions

It’s time for another student spotlight. It’s such a pleasure to highlight a student who’s been so enthused by what I’ve taught them, that they just had to come back for more! Maggie Jordan, not only attended a second vision board workshop, she also recruited five of her good friends to take it! If […]

Journal Page Highlight: I was Raised on Country Sunshine

Today I’d like to share some thoughts with you about another one of my latest journal pages, “Country Sunshine”, which was named in part by the cheerful country tune made popular by Dottie West. Late last year while taking a workshop in Arnprior, I enjoyed trading stories with another student about country music’s role […]

Book Review: Boosting Your Creative Brain Powers!

There’s a popular myth out there that states only some of us have the “natural” ability to be creative. My Aunt always laments that her daughter doesn’t have a “natural” talent for making art like me; this never fails to irk me. I firmly believe that although we may not have all […]

The Collage Artist is In!

Hello! It’s been nice to take a break from blogging to concentrate (almost) exclusively on producing works for my upcoming Atrium Gallery show. Some of my friends thought I was away on vacation, but no such luck! I was here in my subterranean studio slogging away collaging!

It was exciting, nevertheless, to delve into […]