Collaging with color

At a Glance

Taking advantage of the fairly mild weather -- no digging out from under snow and ice -- to get back to something more creative. I had begun these collages for an annual invitational, but never was able to reach the point where I wanted to inflict them on others . . . 

Not that I'm a big fan of pink but after looking out the window at white for weeks on end . . . well, you just want to see something invigorating for a change from gray, black, white and brown.

I've used these papers before, taken from Italian at a Glance (1920). The pages are quite brittle and the cover has fallen off, but I try to salvage the pages themselves.

The scrap of mathematics is from a child's primer from about 1910, and the pieces of fabric are scraps from old quilting projects.  I like them because they're soft and wrinkled, but when the acrylic gel is applied, it smooths them right out.

Earlier today I pulled out some old  paintings on birch panels and decided to 'upcycle' them into something a bit more abstract.  

I tend to be influenced by what I'm reading and yesterday I pulled a book off the shelf that I had forgotten about:  Barbara Rae Prints.  Talk about being hit by color -- Rae's monoprints and etchings are fantastical, surreal, dream-like.  

But now it's a race against time as the gardens will be screaming for work by mid-April -- and on top of all this, I've gotten back to writing again.  I'm hoping to have a manuscript (or two) ready for submittal by early May.  Well, at least that's the goal.  However, every time I set a goal, someone keeps moving those goal posts!

Here is the meaning of the happy moment:

color and I are one.     

Paul Klee