Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 213 (Santa Rosa)

Another comparatively large collage. I was in a dry spell, collage-wise, from the end of last year and into the start of this year, but recently I've started making more monotypes again, and that has led to some new collage work.

This is Untitled Collage No. 213 (Santa Rosa). February 12, 2019. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, graphite, collage. Image size: 28.1 x 37.5cm (11.1 x 14.8 inches). Matted to 20 x 24 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 201 (Santa Rosa)

A recent collage. This is Untitled Collage No. 201 (Santa Rosa), April 16, 2018. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, graphite, collage. Image size: 37.4 x 27.7cm (14.7 x 10.9 inches). 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, see my collage (and photography) website at http://ctalcroft.wixsite.com/collage-site

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 200 (Santa Rosa)

My most recent collage. This is Untitled Collage No. 200 (Santa Rosa). April 15, 2018. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, graphite, collage. Image size 13.0 x 13.1cm (5.1 x 5.2 inches). Matted to 11 x 14 inches. Signed on the mate. Signed and dated on the reverse.

For more of my collage (and other) work, visit my website at http://ctalcroft.wixsite.com/collage-site.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 198 (Santa Rosa)

The first successful collage I've done in too many weeks. Sometimes they are a struggle. I'm now quite pleased with this—a much-simplified remnant of a larger piece that stubbornly refused to come alive.

This is Untitled Collage No. 198 (Santa Rosa). April 2, 2018. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, graphite, archival marker (fragment of a doodling robot drawing), collage. Image size: 13.5 x 12.3cm (5.3 x 4.8 inches). Matted to 11 x 14 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse.

For more of my collage (and other) work, visit my website at http://ctalcroft.wixsite.com/collage-site.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 196 (Santa Rosa)

A new collage. This is Untitled Collage No. 196 (Santa Rosa). January 26, 2018. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, graphite, found paper. Image size: 16.4 x 20.3cm (6.5 x 8.0 inches). Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse.

For more, see my collage website at: http://ctalcroft.wixsite.com/collage-site

At I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 195 (Santa Rosa)

My latest collage. I was in the mood for yellow. I started out with the idea of doing something entirely in shades of yellow, but the process has a way of taking over. Collages have a way of going where they will, and this is where this one went. This is Untitled Collage No. 195 (Santa Rosa). December 20, 2017. Image size: 25.7 x 34.8cm (10.1 x 13.7 inches). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, found paper, graphite, collage. Matted to 20 x 24 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 194 (Santa Rosa)

After making a number of tiny collages recently, I've finished a couple of larger ones. This is Untitled Collage No. 194 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, found paper, collage. December 8, 2017. Image size: 24.9 x 32.4cm (9.8 x 12.8 inches). Matted to 20 x 24 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse.

I normally don't use found paper much, but this incorporates a piece of an envelope mailed from Denmark. Postage stamps in collage are a rather tired cliché, but I hope I've used them subtly here--for their color mostly, rather than in an attempt to evoke some automatic nostalgic response or to suggest something foreign. They are simply a compositional element. Diagonals can be tricky--never stable. I rather like the way the lines slanted to one side here nevertheless seem grounded and, I hope, right.

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

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 182 (Santa Rosa)

Sometimes you finish a piece of work, reluctantly, not entirely happy, but somehow needing to move on, and you're left with something that demands more work or a complete re-think after a little time has passed.

This is Untitled Collage No. 182 (Santa Rosa), initially finished June 8, 2017, but completely reworked on July 13, more than a month later. Originally a horizontal piece, transformed into a much more dynamic and satisfying vertical composition. Now I'm very pleased with it. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monotype, graphite, collage. Image size: 25.4 x 35.7cm (10.0 x14.1in). Matted to 20 x 24 inches. Signed on the mat. Signed and dated on the reverse.

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 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: 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. 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.