My Uncle’s Collage: A Life in a Heartbeat

Detail of my uncle’s photo collage. Top left and four images to the right are of Doug; the one on the bottom right is his mom.

Sometimes the impetus for a collage comes from my need to elaborate on a character who’s currently affecting my life. Since February I’ve been dealing with a […]

My Summer 2013 Interview Spotlight!

Hello! Today I’d like to spotlight the blog of my good friend Irene Rafael. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, she’s a special virtual friend of mine from The United States. We “met” while partaking in Kelly Kilmer’s on-line journaling courses some years ago and have stayed in touch ever since. […]

Reflections: Choosing Characters for My Visual Journal Pages

During my first “Pieces of Me” exhibition, a visitor enquired where I was in my journal pages. “I kept looking for you!” she said. I told her I was there almost everywhere in them… in fact, many female figures whether they be young or old, carried some aspect I wished to embody. Thus far, […]

Exploring My Family Curse

The top portion of “The Curse” (Michelle Casey, Collage, July 2013)… veering away from the rectangular format this piece’s outer elements defines its shape.

These past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a collage about my family curse. If you’ve been following my blog lately, you’ll know about this and the three […]

Summer Reading List: Art-Inspired Novels for Everyone!

Recently I ran across Alyson Stanfield’s Art Biz Coach Blog which listed some great summer reading featuring fiction novels with artists as their main characters. It was such a great idea that it had me wondering what books I’d include on my list. The stuff in my favourite novels is always swimming around in […]

Collage Tip #15: How to Make a Collaged Envelope

My sea-themed collaged envelope (front)

This spring Collage Your World member Jeanne-Sylvie Bellet (France) sent me a beautiful mixed media piece in exchange for a copy of my collage zine. When she mailed it to me, I noticed that it was enclosed in an unusually colourful envelope. Upon further inspection and enquiry, I […]

Collage Tip #14: Incorporating Quotes into Your Collages

There’s No Right or Wrong Way to Collage a Quote…

I thought I’d end my writing series (for now) with another fun tip for integrating words into your collage and mixed media pieces. We’re not all great writers and thinkers so it’s a good thing there are plenty of wonderful quotes out there that […]

Everything Old is New Again: Re-inventing Stories to Collage

Since time immemorial, story tellers have been taking old stories and making them new again. Walt Disney after all was not the first man to relay the tale of Cinderella – its origins are centuries old and it has been re-crafted by many cultures around the world. You can use this same exciting tactic […]

My Father’s Hands: Writing, Collaging, Commemorating

Practicing what I preach, I thought it might be cool to share a minimally edited excerpt of one of my creative writing journal exercises of 2005 with you and reveal how some of its iconography and memories manifested itself in a visual journal page I created in 2010. That April day the writing prompt […]

How Writing Can Inspire Your Collaging

So, some of you more timid souls might have gotten out your pens and markers and went about writing on your collages as I encouraged last week. If so, I applaud you. Perhaps, however, you’re still feeling frustrated. Maybe the words aren’t flowing out as smoothly as you’d like them to. In order to […]