Health and Beauty Depend Largely

The collage presented a real for me. Collages sometimes to that to me. I have had times when a collage has appeared in minutes. I have had times when it has taken months to complete a collage. I have yet other collages that still sit on a pile in my studio.

I started with this wonderful distressed painted background. I had added the salmon colors of paper and got stuck. It sat staring at me for more than a month. I found the advertisement and then played with the vintage wallpaper, and picture to get a sense of balanced composition.

On my piles of ever present paper, I found this young girl. She appears the picture of youth and endless opportunities.

The ever present iris is printed in tissue paper. I placed the tissue paper over the girl to partially hide her. I wanted to present the idea that youth and beauty are not what they seem.

The orange foil from a wine bottle cam last. It provide some balance, texture, and interest.

Once It Was Empty

I created this collage for the International Collage Exchange.

It is yet another exploration of my iris.

There is something so captivating about this flower.

I remember the day I carved it. I placed the piece of linoleum in the sun for about 30 minutes. When I started to carve the sun had made the surface soft. The lines were seamless.

For this collage, I concentrated on color, texture, and form.

The background is several layers of acrylic paint. The found papers are layered based on their color and texture rather than any context. The paper that adds the title, Once It Was Empty, was selected for it's graphic nature.