Art I'm Making: Two More Collages

These are the last of the collages I made during and just after the recent Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event using some new papers I've made in browns, oranges, and pinks. They are Untitled Collage No. 116 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 117 (Santa Rosa), both from the third week of October.

No. 116 (upper image) uses paper made by monoprinting off a sheet of glass that I deliberately left uncleaned from the print that preceded it. I like the map-like effect the overlap of colors created. October 22, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 17.1 x 17.6cm. Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed and dated on reverse. Signed on the mat.

No. 117 (lower image) is a very small piece, less than 2 x 3 inches, using some scraps of the new papers and bits and pieces from older work. October 23, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 6 x 7cm. Matted to 11 x 14 inches. Signed and dated on reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Art I'm Making: More New Collage Work

During the 2015 Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event (always the middle two weekends in October) I created several demonstration sheets of paper using browns and oranges and pinks. These made it into the work I did during the event. This collage is very simple, but I like its quiet dignity.

Untitled Collage No. 114 (Santa Rosa). October 11, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 16.3 x 17cm. Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed on reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site.

Art I'm Making: Collage with Antique Silver Leaf

Not long ago I had the pleasure of visiting the studio of local artist Jenny Honnert Abell, a painter who often incorporates collage elements into her work. I'm pleased to say that I'll be showing her work at Shige Sushi in November and December this year. Her studio is full of collected artifacts that find their way into her work--buttons, book covers, wishbones with wishes written on them, old illustrations, scraps of paper. On one table was a small pile of antique silver foil sheets backed with tissue that appear have been part of a (probably Japanese) screen. I admired the sheets and Jenny kindly gave me one. Here is a collage that incorporates some of that silver leaf. It was not my intention to mimic a screen, but the finished piece seems to have the proportions of a screen. Perhaps that was inevitable? This is Untitled Collage No. 106 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, found paper (antique silver leaf), collage. 21.1 x 11.3cm.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Art I'm Making: New Collages (June-July 2015)

Two newer collages--these completed in the past couple of weeks. Untitled Collage No. 104 (Santa Rosa) is a tiny collage--the smallest I've yet made, measuring only 4 x 4cm, or less than two inches on a side. This one incorporates a scrap from an engineering drawing from an old book that I found at a Goodwill store. It suggests a cityscape to me now, although I had nothing concrete in mind when I made it. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, found paper, collage. Completed June 7, 2015.

Having made some bright red papers recently, I made Untitled Collage No. 105 (Santa Rosa). I like this one for the way it simultaneously suggests both motion and stasis. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, graphite, collage. Completed June 7, 2015.

Art I'm Making: More Collages (June 28, 2015)

The recent Art at the Source Open Studios event afforded me a lot of time to work. I finished several new pieces while hosting visitors to my display area and just before and after the event. Here are two newer pieces. Above is Untitled Collage No. 102 (Santa Rosa), using acrylic on paper, and monoprinted paper elements. This one uses blank areas to anchor the overall composition, small jots of color to keep the eye moving at the same time. The freer, linear element at the center was made by drawing in paint on a glass plate with the back end of a paint brush. June 1, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint on paper, collage. Image size 11.4 x 11.5cm.

Below is Untitled Collage No. 103 (Santa Rosa), the result of a chance meeting with some of the people at Iota Press, in Sebastopol. Next door to the press is Beekind, where I sometimes buy beekeeping supplies. I noticed the Iota Press sign as I was leaving Beekind. I dropped in and got into a conversation with the man that runs the place and got him to give me some paper discarded in the wastebaskets. One of these (the torn scrap in the center) I've incorporated into this piece. June 5, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint on paper, found paper (printer's scrap), collage. Image size 23 x 21.5cm.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Art I'm Making: New Collage

I finished this piece in the middle of March. It uses test strips made by local photographer Barbara Elliot, who is learning the platinum/palladium printing process. I visited her studio not long ago to talk about showing her work on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi, which I'm now curating. We'll be doing a show of her work later this year. While talking she showed me some of the tests the was doing and I noticed these scraps with penciled lines and numbers on them. She kindly gave them to me when I expressed an interest in them as collage material. This is Untitled Collage No. 93 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, found paper (platinum/palladium test strips with graphite). Image size: 16 x 21.7cm.

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). Come see my work in person during the Art at the Source open studios event, June 6 & 7 and June 13 & 14, 2015--at Studio 48, in Sebastopol.

Art I'm Making: New Collages (November, 2014)

I've finished two new collages in the past couple of weeks. Pictured here is Untitled Collage No. 81 (Santa Rosa). This one is rather more boldly colored than usual, using some raspberry-colored paper and the luscious Venetian Red made by Sennelier.

In contrast, Untitled Collage No. 82 (Santa Rosa) shown below is mostly in neutral shades, although with accents in a deep grey-blue and in purples. It's an altogether more contemplative piece. It incorporates a few bits of paper with torn edges. I mostly use a paper cutter to get straight edges, but I liked these ragged scraps. I've let one push out below the bottom of the picture edge.

I'll be showing some of my collages in December and January at Shige Sushi, in downtown Cotati, on the new Art Wall there. Come by and meet me and the other artists participating in the show (Claude Smith and Sherry Parker) called "The Art of Collage" on December 17, 2014 at 7:00PM. The show will run from December 6 through the end of January 2015.

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: 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