Constructed collage landscape, in progress

Lately I've been working on a triptych commission -- a collage landscape for a resort lobby. I'm working on three panels, each 12 x 12." Assuming the collage is approved by the client this week, it will then be photographed, enlarged and reproduced onto three canvases, each 36 x 36." So the finished piece will be a 9 foot vertical expanse... really exciting to imagine! 

Here is an in-progress photo taken a week or so ago. At left are the three collage panels. (I've painted the edges black so that is why you see some black brush marks on the surface, which will be covered with paper when complete.) At right are several trays of greens, blues, and potential stone colors that I collected in advance to consider for this project.

At the time of this photo I'd just set up the table for a fresh work session... most of the time there were quite a few scraps under consideration laying all over that pristine looking kraft paper! Once the college is approved, I'll post some finished photos. 

Collage in progress, update

At left is an interim photo of the collage in progress that I began posting about here.

Below is the collage when almost finished... at this point the collage in progress will sit in the studio, as I work on others, so I can study it and consider any other possible additions.

I've already added a couple of elements but they don't significantly change the feeling of the collage -- they just refine it a bit further.

Seeing possibilities... collecting collage ingredients

I'm often asked where the bits and pieces of my collages come from... I have a habit of looking at the negative spaces, the spaces BETWEEN and AROUND the featured items in a photograph. It's often there that I see the patterns, color gradations, and subtle imagery that I find most intriguing and useable.

The large photo above shows a recent photograph from the newspaper that had ingredient potential. (Caveat: It's very dangerous not to finish the paper before I get to it, if you want to be assured of reading the complete story!)

At left is a detail of the photo where I've indicated, with green outlines, the areas that I will rip out for future use.

I was recently explaining how I gather materials during a demonstration to a local art guild. Afterwards one fellow said, "You sure see things differently..." Yep, and I took that statement as a huge compliment!

Junk Mail Journal collage circa 3.10.12

Another in my ongoing series of collage studies with ingredients supplied by the daily mail. (It begins to dawn on me that the proposed postal delivery cutbacks may eventually compromise this creative practice... hmm.)

"Junk Mail Journal 3.10.12," contemporary paper collage, in sketchbook, 9 x 6."
© 2012, Janice McDonald.