Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 292 (Santa Rosa)

This is Untitled Collage No. 292 (Santa Rosa), among the first pieces I completed in 2024. It dates from May 11 this year. It uses one of my favorite colors "Chinese Orange," made by the French paint and ink brand Sennelier, offset by a copper-patina green. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, collage. Image size: 40.2cm x 27.9cm (15.9in x 11.0in). Matted to 24 x 20 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse. 

Click on the image for a larger view. For more of my abstract monotype collage work, visit my website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ or you can purchase my recently published book commemorating ten years of working in the collage medium – Colin Talcroft: Abstract Monotype Collage: 2103–2023 (ISBN 979-8-218-37717-5). Available on the website. 

In person, my work can be seen at Calabi Gallery in Santa Rosa, Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg, and at the Ren Brown Collection in Bodega Bay. Or, you can visit me during Art Trails, Sonoma County's premier juried open studios event, which will be October 19–20 and October 26–27 this year. This year, I'll be Studio 40. Hope to see you in the studio! See less 

Art I'm Making: More Collages (February 6, 2014)

The day before yesterday I turned to my paints again, eager to try out a new color I bought in the wonderful Sennelier acrylic line, this one called "Warm Grey." I covered a few sheets of paper with the color and some other pale tones--the ones they call "Parchment" and "Titan Buff" among them. I doodled a little with a graphite stick. Later I got out "Prussian Blue Hue" (This one from Graham rather than Sennelier), and printed a few more sheets of paper from a plate of glass and used some of these mono-printed sheets to print on other sheets of paper. Armed with all this new raw material, I quickly put together three new collages that I'm rather pleased with. I really like the Sennelier colors and the effects I've been achieving by printing onto paper using mono-printed elements. These new collages have a rather different feel from some of the others I've done, but I'm pleased with them.

Art I'm Making: More Collages (November 3, 2013)

I continue to play with paper and paint, producing collages with acrylic-painted paper elements and fragments of monoprints on paper, again using acrylic paint to print with. I particularly like the colors made by Sennelier. In the past 10 days or so I've finished three more small pieces. The monoprint element is strong in these works. Endlessly fascinating. Shown here in the order I made them. The largest is the last one, about 7 inches on the long side.

Photos never capture the subtleties of the printed surfaces, but they're enough to get some idea of what the pieces look like. Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.

On the road (Europe 2010): Paris (Sennelier)

A short walk along the Seine down the Quai Voltaire from the Musée d'Orsay is Sennelier, one of Paris's oldest and best art supply stores. They make some of the best printmaking inks in the world. I have always used them. It was a great pleasure to set foot in this shop again for the first time in many years. I bought a sketch pad, a beautiful handmade watercolor brush and some ink. The racks of pastels were art in themselves. More found art.