Day One: Collage

Remember how I said that when I clipped the materials for my Van Gogh/tree collage I also clipped materials for a second collage? Apparently I lied. The good news is that I held on to the source materials, intact...the bad news is that I had a long day of clipping. I was mostly thankful that I had not thrown out the calendars - one of them is from 2003 so if I wasn't such a hoarder [thanks A&E] I know it would not be with me today.

The two calendars chosen for the collage are Taschen dayplanners. I generally shell out the big bucks for one of these each years as I like to give the illusion of organization and Taschen has the best choices for subject matter - lots of art and photography [this year was a bit of a departure as I didn't get a Taschen or a Hello Kitty calendar of any kind - instead doubling down in calendars featuring Star Wars - just wait for the collage I will make in January 2010]. The two I'm fusing [ummm, literally!] for this collage are a Marilyn Monroe one and one called Digital Beauties. The Marilyn one was interesting because all of the photos are from the same photographer - some clearly never meant to be seen because of problems with the film or just examples of bad photography [if it's possible to take bad photos of Marilyn - arguably it's not]. She's very young and still married to her first husband [and pre-plastic surgery] in most of these photos, so they are a bit different from the styled and glam Marilyn that most recognize. The other calendar is full of computer generated women/girls. Some of them are very photorealistic, some are very anime in style. I wrote a lot in that particular dayplanner so I think I got more of a kick out of seeing what was going on in 2003 than I did in cutting the photos.

It took me nearly three hours to cut out all of the photos. Instead of using only rectangles [all the photos are the same size, so it was possible] I did more silhouettes and creative shaping. I chose to do this project while sitting in bed so I didn't have anywhere to rest my back. I'm certainly not as young as I used to be when I used to do all of my school work on my bed or seated on the floor in front of it. Wee-ow. I still haven't decided if I will add words to this collage or not. I'm leaning towards "not" - I think because I have so many photos. Also, I need a much larger board to mount this particular collage. I have another board the same size as my Van Gogh/trees collage [about 3'x2'], but it's too small. I will have to head to the dreaded art store soon. Until then the clippings are neatly tucked away in one of my art portfolios.