Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 38 (Santa Rosa); Untitled Collage No. 39 (Santa Rosa)

 Two new collages. These made from scraps left over from other work, again predominantly in shades of indigo and orange. Untitled Collage No. 38 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 39 (Santa Rosa). Both were made using paper either painted directly with acrylic paints or mono-printed. The first of the two, includes some graphite scribbling.  April 23, 2014. Image size 9.3 x 11.3cm (No. 38) and 13.5 x 10.5cm (No. 39).

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. 37 (Santa Rosa)

Another collage. This one using circular elements and remnants of the indigo and orange papers I made a while back. Acrylic on paper, mono-printed elements, graphite, collage. Image size 14.5 x 16.9cm. 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.

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.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 35 (Santa Rosa)

Another collage. This one very small (only 6.7 x 7.7cm)--but size is not always important. Acrylic on paper, mono-printed elements, collage. April 1, 2014. Although unintended, this one gives me the impression of looking at a dusky landscape, perhaps by moonlight, with a large, old cypress tree in the foreground....

Click on the image for a larger view. 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. 34 (Santa Rosa)

 New collages. Four new collages, to be exact, made in a spurt of activity between bouts of work in the past ten days or so--both the translating work I do and the landscaping work I've taken on at one of the local wineries.

This one is all in indigo tones. It has a somewhat maritime feel, although that was not intended. Something about it also reminds me of the 1950s--again unintended. I work strictly in the abstract--with color, form, texture, line. Acrylic paint on paper, mono-printed elements, collage. April 1, 2014. Image size, 14.2 x 12.2cm.

Click on the image for a larger view. 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. 31 (Santa Rosa), March 5, 2014

And yet another collage. This one did not come easily. I re-worked it many times before coming up with something I liked. And then I lopped off its head, so to speak--cutting off an additional section at what is now the bottom of this composition that had more of the orange elements in it. Ultimately, I liked it best like this, having removed that extra orange portion and then inverted the image. Funny how a piece can seem almost right but continue to irk. Sometimes what finally fixes it is the addition of something new. Sometimes, as in this case, it's a subtraction. The fun thing about collage is that the subtracted bits often find their way into other pieces.

Collage of paper painted with acrylics and mono-printed elements also made using acrylic paints (image size 16.5cm x 13.2cm).

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 30 (Santa Rosa)

I just finished another collage. This one features some curved elements. I recently found a good paper cutter that cuts circles--which will make it possible to add more curved lines to the work I'm doing. Curves made sense here because of the spiraling line in the upper part of the composition. This is another piece made from painted paper using acrylic paints and from mono-printed elements (16.5cm x 18cm).

For more, use the Art I'm Making label at the right.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 29 (February 18, 2014)

I finished another new collage recently. This one is something of a departure for me because it includes a found object--a numeral three printed on a slip of white paper. It was the wrapper around a bundle of silverware at one of downtown Santa Rosa's brew pubs (The Third St. Ale Works). Normally I don't use found objects because I don't trust them. They tend to fade or yellow, but this one seemed relative safe. It's printed on plain paper in a single color--black--and black tends to hold up. Otherwise, I've again used paper painted with acrylic paints, along with mono-printed elements made with acrylics on paper as the raw materials for the composition, although this one also includes a couple of lines in graphite as well. In the photo here, the lower section looks black, perhaps, but it's actually a deep indigo. Only the numeral is black.

For more, use the Art I'm Making label at right.

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: New Collages (January 26, 2014)

I've finished three new collages in the past week. All three are made from pieces of painted paper (paper painted directly with acrylic paint) or of paper cut from small mono-printed elements. Occasionally I incorporate pieces of handmade paper, but nearly all of what I use is made by painting or printing on plain paper. In one of these (top photo) I've also used a slightly three-dimensional element, although it's hard to see in the photo here. These are collages number 23, 24, and 25.

The collages are small--the smallest (bottom photo) measuring only about 3 x 4 inches, the larger two measuring about 5 x7 inches each.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 21 (Santa Rosa)

First art of the new year. I finished this little collage on January 3rd. I looks a little darker and muddier in the photograph here than it does in real life, but it's a reasonable facsimile. Acrylic paint on paper with acrylic mono-printed elements.

Art I'm making: More Collages (December 20, 2013)

I've completed three new collages in the past couple of days. I work with acrylic paints to make colored paper, often printing on the paper using paint spread on glass to create mono-print effects or using painted paper to print directly onto other sheets of paper. The effects continue to amuse me.

I'm quite pleased with these last three, although the deep plum sauce color in a couple of them doesn't photograph very well....

Art I'm Making: Collages (July 18, 2013)

On the 14th of this month I sat down with some acrylic paints and a canvas for the first time in a spell. For a long time now I've been trying to explore painting with acrylics, having painted in oils my entire life--which is not to say I've completed a large number of satisfying oil paintings over the years--only a handful, in fact. I've always liked the feel of oils but found it frustrating to have to wait days for the paint to dry before being able to paint over things. I like to work quickly, watching things change as I go, and I like to work in layers. Oils make that difficult.

I've never liked the feel of acrylics, but I'm beginning to see that the quality of acrylic colors has greatly improved and there is now a dizzying selection of mediums and gels and pastes and other additives available to keep things interesting. That said, I typically splash some paint around and quickly get frustrated because the acrylic colors don't leave behind the kind of brush strokes I like. The paint layer can look flat and lifeless. I've yet to figure out which gels to add to get the textures I want. Next week I plan to attend a demonstration hosted by the Sennelier company (which makes beautiful printing inks and has recently released a line of equally beautiful acrylic colors), to see what their colors are like and to get some hints. We'll see what comes of that.

I've long been attracted by the idea of printmaking using paper cutouts as the printing blocks, but never wholeheartedly pursued the idea. It's largely because I don't like the look of the shapes I cut with scissors (I'd like to be able to convert designs I make on the computer to paper cut-outs, but don't know how to do that). With the acrylic paints out, though, I splashed some on a cut-out and pressed the painted paper against another sheet, using a Japanese baren to get good contact--but that was too much and I simply glued the two sheets together. The paper tore when I tried to pull the "block" away. It turns out that I liked what was left behind, however, and the torn ochre surface I inadvertently created became the starting point for some exploration with dabbled paint and painted paper and more cutting of shapes that I then began to lay over what I'd started with, using the acrylic paints to glue layers together. After a couple of hours of absorbing fun, I came up with a composition I almost liked, but there was something disturbing about it. With my paper cutter I hacked off the offending part and, after a few more tweaks, I settled on the collage shown at the top of the page*. On the following day, I started to look at the cut-off portion and began adding to it until I got the little collage in the lower picture. I had a lot of fun making these two small works. Perhaps I've finally found a way to work with acrylics that suits me? I like that the paint dries quickly, so I don't have to interrupt my thinking while waiting for a surface to dry. I like that you can paint over things almost immediately. The layering of paint and paper gives a solid look that I've never been able to achieve just spreading acrylic paints on canvas. I'm eager to do more of these....

*Since writing this, I have completely reworked the first piece. Nothing much of it remains. The photo here is now the reworked version, completed two weeks after the initial creation.