A Centenary of Collage

I am delighted to be involved in an art exhibition to celebrate 100 years of collage at

The Arison Gallery 512 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. The exhibition runs from 24th February – 4th April 2009.

It was a hundred years ago, 1908, a 26 year old Pablo Picasso took a sheet of cardboard with a label stuck on to it and drew a couple of nude figures in a wooded glade. The label he painted over in white and drew a boat with a figure leaning over the stern. The picture he called The Dream.

The term collage comes from the French verb, coller, the verb “to stick” and this term has come to mean a picture with elements stuck on a surface to create a picture. Some would argue that The Dream is not strictly a collage, indeed Picasso did not himself stick the label on, but it is the earliest known work with a collaged element. Picasso was later to enter into a fruitful artistic relationship with George Braques and from 1911 they developed the collage medium often not considering a work finished until the other had passed comment.

Exhibition curator Michael Billington thought that 2009 was an appropriate time to celebrate the medium of collage and he has put together a display of works from Artists across four continents. Twenty artists from England, Spain, Argentina, USA and Australia have come together to give a representation of 21st century collagists and there are examples of the old fashioned hand cut and stuck works on paper, pieces of ephemera assembled in small boxes in the style of Cornell and also examples of a more modern technological way of approaching collage through computer software such as “photoshop”.

Some of the works in this exhibition are in private collections and have been kindly loaned for the event but many are for sale. The artists hope that you enjoy this celebration of the medium of collage and hope that you follow up their web sites to view more of their work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Michael for all his hard work in making this Exhibition happen. You can view Michaels Art here

You can view a “virtual” exhibition of the works on line at a special preview:
A Centenary of Collage

One World, One Heart Blog Giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW ENDED, PLEASE SEE POST ABOVE FOR WINNER!

I have recently been told about this wonderful worldwide blogging event that is designed to bring bloggers together from around the world, and you may even win a wonderful handmade gift along the way! It is the brainchild of Lisa, the creator of One World One Heart, here is an excerpt from Lisa.....

"It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people, and in the process possibly win a prize or many prizes along the way...This is more than wanting to win something.......that is only the means.......in the end it's about finding kindred spirits. Someone who may be fairly new to blogging, not sure how to navigate, find others and have others find them....Some are long time bloggers and in some cases well known in the art community. Whatever the case it brings all of them together...We are not solving the worlds problems nor are we curing anything nor are we changing the world. We are merely generating a closer community between humans through blogging."

To find out more and see a list of the participating blogs and their links, please click the One World One Heart logo above.

So, here's my Giveaway.......

The winner will receive the Altered Art Boot Tag shown in the photo along with one of my whimsical bookmarks, as shown in the photo.

To enter all you need to do is leave a comment on this post. Please be sure to include your email address. The final day for leaving a comment is Feb 11th, as the draw will be made and announced on February 12th!

Weekly Showcase - A Few ATCs

When I first began getting into Altered Art I started out making ATC's (Artist Trading Cards), and I still really enjoy making them years later. Over the years I have produced hundreds of these little works of art and sold many on Ebay. Here are a few examples from my archives; Above "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" - this was actually one of the first ATCs I made. The lady is the wonderful actress Lillian Gish, I just adore her expression and pose, it lends itself so well to the title of this piece.

Le Frou Frou is a little cheeky I know, I have positioned the fairy slighty raised from the card for a 3d type effect, and as with most of my fairies, her wings are printed onto acetate to give them a nice gossamer "see through" effect.

On The Good Ship Lollipop..... I really enjoyed making this ATC, the background image of people waving others off on a ship about to set sail, this is taken from some vintage fabric that I was lucky enough to acquire, I then built the rest of the scene around that image. The fairy wings are again printed onto acetate and stick out complete from the card to give a lovely 3D effect.

What Not To Wear... I adore working with comical vintage photo's and altering them into something even more comical! I had great fun with this image, and it was so popular that I now sell a Greetings Card with this image upon it, it is one of my best selling cards.

A Fairy Amongst Us

Look, look..... We have a fairy amongst us!! There we were busily tending to our Garden when out of the blue she appeared, flitting about amongst us, sprinkling her fairy dust as she went. What a playful thing she was, dancing around our garden without a care in the world. I hope she returns, I'd like to see her again, that fairy amongst us.

Fabulous Blog Award

I am honoured to receive this lovely Award from Pearls & Whirls Jewellery Design (Check out their blog!) Caz, thank you so much for this Award.

I now have to choose a few blogs that I think are Fabulous and deserve this Award, so here goes...

Johanna Parker Design

Lisa Kettell of Faerie Enchantment

Whymsical Musings

Angela Harris of Your Angil

They are all wonderful blogs so be sure to check them out, they all soooooo deserve this award.

Cute Cupid

With Valentine's Day a stones through away I thought I should take a rummage through some of my vintage Valentine images and wait for inspiration to come!! And whilst waiting, and waiting, and waiting (inspiration wasn't forthcoming today), I came across a few wonderful cupid images that I wanted to share with you. Please feel free to copy and use these in your own art if you wish.

Aren't these absolutely adoreable. I think they would make wonderful cards, and would even look fantastic framed in a bedroom..... MMmmmm now that's a thought!!

Weekly Showcase

Oopps, I've been so carried away with the Wedding thing that I forgot to list a Weekly Showcase piece, so here goes...better late than never!

This piece is entitled "Mermaid Dreams" and it is produced on thick cardstock. The background layer is taken from a famous Japanese Art Piece, which I can't remember the name of at this time (shame on me!!). The Mermaid herself has been fashioned from a vintage image of a 20s lady, I printed her tail fin onto clear acetate and the accented it with some sparkles and a sterling silver embellishment. I have raised one of the waves to enable me to position a part of the mermaids fin behind it to give a slight 3D effect. Oh and of course not forgetting the sparkles to cover her modesty!

Piddlestix Zine

I am so excited, my lovely, wonderful, sweet friend Lisa Kettell of Faerie Enchantment has produced another beautiful zine; Piddlestix, and I am so honored that she has featured some of my art in this issue. Both the Faerie Zine and Piddlestix showcase different artists of every level and brings together varying styles from vintage chic artists to tea lovers, Marie Antoinette followers and of course Fairy Addicts to name but a few. If you have never experienced one of Lisa's wonderful publications, now is the time. You can purchase Piddlestix at Lisa's Etsy Store, you wont be disappointed. Lisa, thank you so much for including my art in this issue and thank you for your sweet friendship.

I've Been Tagged!

I have been tagged by Gufobado to list 5 things I do to keep my mind healthy and my life balanced. So here they are...1- Spending as much quality time with my children and husband as I can. 2- Creating and designing my art, is it my big passion in life. 3- Volunteering at my local Charity Shop, it's great to mix with and meet other volunteers and also give something back to society. 4- Taking long country walks with my family and photographing the countryside we stroll through. 5- Spending time with my extended family and old friends.

As it is now my turn to do the tagging, here are five fellow artists who's work I adore:

1: Lisa Kettell of Faerie Enchantment

2: Leanne Ellis of La La La Illustration

3: Rowan DeVoe

4: Remember Me Emily

5: Layers of Color

Love Tokens

Well with Christmas and New Year out of the way I am looking forward to creating anything other than Christmas Cards, after three months of it I'm really ready for something new, so I guess with Valentines Day on the horizon love and passion will take over my creative juices...

Each Valentines I always produce my "Love Tokens" as they do go down well and men seem to enjoy giving them as well as the ladies. Here are two I produced last year.....

I've got several ideas buzzing around my head for my Valentine Greetings Card Line, so I'll get cracking with those and hopefully have some photos to share with you all in a few days. And then after that it'll be on to Mothers Day and of course the next BIG one... Easter!!!

Fairyland

Even now I don't understand

The meaning of growing up

But I wonder where that girl

Oor that boy from my memory

Is now walking and trying for

Daybreak was early this time.

The scent of the wind has changed

It seems familiar and strange

At the same time

It makes my heartbeat quicker

I miss it so much it hurts.

As we naively continued on this road to the sea

We fell over laughing in those far away summer days

The childhood memories are still in my heart

We had no way of knowing what waited ahead in the future.

We ran through that distant summer day,

Innocently rolling with laughter down the path to that sea.

I just want to return to the days

Where we worried about what we'll do

And how far we will go

But since then, I've looked for and found

Some things, just to lose them

Over and over again.

What is left is what we chose to keep,

It's not unexpected at all

If the universe has a will

I think it surely worked for us

Caring and treasuring us.

Your smile has taught me

That we are now

In the closest place to eternity.

Altering the PreRaphaelites

This weeks showcase piece focuses on PreRaphaelite Altered Art. Although I adore altering vintage images, I also love working on PreRaphaelite art and have a large collection of images from Millais, Waterhouse, Hunt, Burne-Jones to name but a few. Altering this type of image is so different from the vintage photo's, to be able to choose from a huge collection of colourful romantic images is pure heaven and easily sparks my imagination it also makes an interesting change from altering the vintage photo's that I so enjoy.

What a Lucky Girl I Am!!

I belong to a wonderful UK Craft Forum http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/ and through it have made some lovely contacts and a wealth of crafting knowledge. Thankfully through the forum I was introduced to Clare of Poisoned Apple Jewellery and she recently offered me some beautiful photo's from her family's albums, dating back to the 1920s. As I am a huge fan of vintage images it was like a second Christmas for me and I was in my element when Clare finally emailed them through to me. To top it all she was able to give me the history behind each photo, which is not something I am always able to find out with photo's that I find, so this was an added bonus.

Thank you so much Clare, they are gorgeous photo's and I'll be sure to publish any Art here that I produce from them, I can't wait to get altering them.

Fairy Hunting in Sicklehatch Woods

Woke up this morning to a crisp, sunny winters day and as we are still officially on our Christmas break we decided to take the boys on a "Fairy Hunt" to Sicklehatch Woods which is a short walk from our front door. On went the warm winter clothing and a rucksack full of ham sandwiches and a hot flask of tea... oh, and the obligatory pieces of chocolate to entice the fairies to come out and show themselves, and then we were on our way.

To get deep into the woods we needed to cross the rickety bridge close to Leather Bottle Cottage and then on through bracken and thicket until we reached the clearing where the little mossy tree sits, this is where I assured my boys I had seen the fairies before, so we sat down with our sandwiches, tea and chocolate and waited patiently.

After a few moments we heard a very faint rustling and as the sun shone across the clearing a few sparkles of what seemed to be fairy dust glistened around the mossy tree, and then a few feet in front of us she appeared much to our delight. At first we did not move for fear of scaring her off but gradually we realised she was quite happy to be amongst us, so Ethan bravely moved in for a closer look and as he knelt down she raised her arms as if to welcome him closer... it was truly magical. But then as fast as she appeared, she then disappeared from our site leaving a sprinkling of fairy dust behind her! But I assured the boys that we would return again soon for more fairy adventures.