A New Collage Series, Passageways

“Passageways I” – Collage, 5 x 7″

Passageways is the title of my new series of collages. These are created using a completely different approach from the intuitive collage process that I outlined in a series of previous posts. They are more abstract, have a  limited palette, and very few photographic elements are used. My goal with these was to make them more abstract and related to my current paintings.

Instead of making a matrix and using a viewfinder to determine different compositions after the fact, I am arranging the cut and torn papers individually within a predetermined format. My papers consist of handmade papers, brown paper with graphite doodles, magazine clippings, and plain newsprint with paint dabs.

I do like clean edges for my collages, so I have lightly drawn in the border on my background paper with a pencil beforehand and then glued down the papers just to the edges of the border lines, or just beyond them. After the composition is complete, I trim away the irregular edges and will mount the whole finished collage onto a heavier piece of art paper.