Art I'm Making: Two Small Collages

Work has picked up a little, leaving me less time to work on art than I'd like, but I've completed two or three new collages since the end of the Art Trails open studio event. Untitled Collage No. 79 (Santa Rosa) uses red and raspberry-colored mono printed papers I've made set off with a scrap of orange paper from a chocolate bar wrapper. Pictured above.

Untitled Collage No. 80 (Santa Rosa), pictured below, uses umber, black, and a very deep (nearly black) navy blue offset with warm tones. Both collages are small--about four inches square.

Click on the images for a larger view. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Art I'm Making: An Old New Collage

Once in a while I come across an unused assemblage of shapes and colors that somehow works in juxtaposition with another leftover fragment. This little collage is a pairing of two such fragments from months back. As a result, this new piece has an affinity with work I was doing a while ago. Echoes from the past.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Art I'm Making: Another New Collage

Chartreuse is one of those love-it-or-hate-it colors. It's not a favorite of mine, but, having made some chartreuse paper recently, I started playing with shapes and colors and I developed a composition against a chartreuse background that I rather like. I used bright, sharply contrasting colors--magenta, red, burnt orange--to set off the yellow-green. Untitled Collage No. 77 (Santa Rosa) was born. Visit my studio this coming weekend to see the original (which is rather more subtly colored than the photo here suggests).

Sonoma County Art Trails 2014 continues next weekend (October 18 and 19). My studio is No. 125. I'm also showing photography and printmaking.



Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Art I'm Making: September 2014 Collage Work

New collages. These two are further explorations using the raspberry-colored papers I've been making, but also drawing on some of the striated indigo blue papers I've made in Untitled Collage No. 69 (Santa Rosa) above and using the mossy green papers of a few weeks back in Untitled Collage No. 70 (Santa Rosa) below.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014

Art I'm Making: More Collages (September 2-3)

In the past week I've completed a couple more collages. Untitled Collage No. 67 (Santa Rosa) shown at the top uses more of the raspberry colored papers I've recently made but also incorporates bits and pieces leftover from older work.

Below, Untitled Collage No. 68 (Santa Rosa) uses a piece of green paper with graphite scribbling on it as well as some deep blue papers and a scrap of dark blue mono-printed paper that involved scraping into the paint on the glass with different tools to create lines of various sizes. These two were completed on September 2 and September 3.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014

Art I'm Making: Yet More Collages (August 2014)

Visiting a friend recently, I sampled some of his favorite chocolate bars, exotically flavored with green tea, cardamom, and other ingredients. They come in velvety paper wrappers that I just couldn't resist using in a couple of new collages. These are Untitled Collage No. 65 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 66 (Santa Rosa). The wrinkled red paper and the orange paper are from the chocolate bars. I finished these two at the end of August.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014

Art I'm Making: New Collages (July 2014)

While it goes without saying that quality is more important than quantity when it comes to art, there's something to be said for establishing a regular work routine. It was in the middle of July 2013 that I made my first collage. It happened that I finished about one new collage a week in the following weeks. I decided that it would be good to try to maintain that pace, so that I would have 52 finished works a year later. I've been able to do that. In fact, I've exceeded that pace. In this, the last week of July 2014, I should have finished 54 collages, but I have finished 60, and here are Untitled Collage No. 58 (Santa Rosa), Untitled Collage No. 59 (Santa Rosa), and Untitled Collage No. 60 (Santa Rosa).

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014

Art I'm Making: New Collages

More collages using the green papers I've recently made, as well as indigo papers from weeks past. One also uses a scrap of orange that goes back months. You never know what will turn out to be just the right element to complete a composition. These are Untitled Collage No. 50 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 51 (Santa Rosa).

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014.

Art I'm Making: New Collages

I make collages by pasting together pieces of paper onto which I've directly painted with acrylic paints or made mono-prints on (again using acrylics). I recently made some attractive mossy green prints that have become part of new collages. Shown here are my Untitled Collage No. 48 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 49 (Santa Rosa).

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014.

Art I'm Making: New Collages

I continue to work making collages--five new ones since last reporting. These are "Untitled Collage No. 41" through "Untitled Collage No. 45." Needless to say, I'm pleased with them--or I wouldn't consider them finished works--but I particularly like No. 43, No. 44, and No. 45 (Shown at top, in that order). I've just cleaned out my piles and piles of painted paper scraps. I now need to get out the paper and paints and create some new raw materials. The next work I do will reflect the colors and textures of this new raw material, while these last pieces share traits of earlier pieces.

I'm happy to report that the Sonoma County Art Trails jury chose me as a new Art Trails participant for 2014, so I'll be opening up my "studio"--just a space on my office floor, actually--for the open studio weekends in October. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by. Click on the pictures for larger views. For more, use the "Art I'm Making" tab at right.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 40 (May 9, 2014)

Finished another little collage yesterday, mostly in the color of faded blue jeans, white, and with a little green in it as well. Acrylic on paper, acrylic mono-print on paper, collage. Image size 10 x 10.8cm.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 36 (Santa Rosa)

Another collage, again using paper either painted directly with acrylic paints or mono-printed. This one uses vaguely calligraphic effects in some of the elements, notably the orange section on the far right and the central magenta swatch. April 1, 2014.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, use the Art I'm Making tab to the right or visit my collage and photography website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/ (requires Flash Player).

Visit my studio during the 2014 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th and Saturday and Sunday, October 18th and 19th, 2014.