Tag Archives: dianaphotoapp

A problem of volume

It’s one thing to vary photo layers and filters endlessly in a kind of obsessive and focused play. It’s another matter altogether to manage the volume of results. I get attached to these collages! What am I supposed to DO with them?

Cleaning up the downstairs study closet affords one idea: group images and print on both paper and cloth. I found print-ready silk, cotton, stickers, and loads of archival paper. What am I saving it all for?

Printing from my phone is a pain in the ass in terms of centering or sizing images, so I may have to go back to downloading onto PC and working through Photoshop elements. Ugh. I really want to preserve a body of work and in so doing, create another body of work, but I want simplicity of process!

Must also consider copyright issues. I cannot sell collages that use recognizable and/or untransformed work by other artists. Is that MOST of my collages? Maybe.

My vision of small booklets posted for purchase gets quickly dashed.

Today it’s wet. It rained hard throughout the night. I know because I was awake for a lot of it.

I’ll close with a few screen shots. Food for thought and images of — what else? — cloth!

From recent NYTimes Style section

Paper plus photo plus another photo (or two)

And so it goes, obsessively, with this weekly visual prompt challenge from the Paris Collage Collective. I’m sorry if this gets to be too much, but given how many iterations I produce, there’s this need to document at least some of them here.

When I cut the male silhouette out of a magazine ad (above), by removing his knee, the lower shadow took on the appearance of a dress which, by association, transformed the dreadlocks into the knots and folds of a head scarf.

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/It3DLWLP/img_0324.mp4

On an unrelated note, the other night when I couldn’t sleep I stepped outside and walked across the lawn to shoot the moon between the branches of our big black walnut tree.

Just as I reached out to open the front door, a man made his way along the street. Dressed head to toe in khaki, middle-aged, he creeped me the fuck out. I mean it was 2:30. Maybe I shouldn’t have read Stephen King’s The Outsider?

Digital collage

Obsession really. I made another mini-movie but I know WordPress won’t upload it. So here are some pix from it put together in mosaic groups or singly, instead.

It’s rainy. This was the second hottest July on record. I didn’t walk at all today, but there were pancakes on the side porch (not on the patio because neighbors had a bday party in their backyard), two crossword puzzles, kitchen counter bleaching. I talked shop with another author. Visited a local friend and sat out on her back porch. Tea. Apricot jam and crackers.

So sad that HBO’s Perry Mason is over. It was intense, stylish, well-acted with interesting takes on what Mason’s backstory might’ve looked like.

But Endeavour is on, so that’s good.

I ran out of olive oil today so put in a second grocery order with Amazon fresh. I am certain I shall go to carbon footprint hell for all the packaging. It’s bad. I’m bad. And at the same time, I feel like I might never grocery shop again.

Slate gray skies

Cold enough for down coat, hat, and gloves for the morning’s dog walk. I feel a little about spring as I do about Bernie. How grateful I’d be if he dropped out! How grateful I’d be if we had a warm, sunny day! I anticipate the lush riches of spring with a heightened need this year — unfurling maple leaves, nodding daffodils, the bold tulips and magnolias. All this time spent looking out windows framing grey, taupe, and dun!

This morning’s writing class was marred by technical difficulties. I breathed through it. Wrote through it.

Here are some double exposures I created two nights ago. The constant image is the star-adorned wooden box that used to house my sister’s Aquarian Tarot deck. The other images include: dome interior from Rome, a statue of the Virgin from San Rufino cathedral in Assisi, a quilt, a garden bowl of water.

My remoulade bombed. It looked like cat puke in the chowder. Not at all what I was hoping for!

Tomorrow, we pick up a $30 box of produce in the Fenway, an effort organized by a place called “The Neighborhood.” I want to support small markets and local farmers to the extent I can, so there is more sourcing to do here.

Off for a nap! Hope you all are managing as best you can. I’m not looking for silver linings at the moment, but I wonder if this experience will help me develop patience.

You might not know

You might not know how much of my psyche is wrapped up with wondering what it’s like to become an adult right now, particularly as a man.

I don’t realize the depth of this preoccupation myself until I start making collages.

Example: the SoulCollage card above. There are LOTS of examples.

For obvious reasons, climate emergency comes up. It is really hard to imagine 15 years out.

I glued a lot of paper into the book after dinner tonight, slitting compositions in half or thirds to fit on the page where need be. This will allow me to use remnants to create unifying repetitions.

Below is another one of my slide shows. I don’t know why this satisfies me so much. I don’t expect it to satisfy you. It’s worth noting that this process is NOTHING like working with cloth. I read Grace’s post just now where she draws parallels between cloth and paper and they are there for the finding. This is not that.

For info on this collage project see Acey’s blog sparklinglotusink

For more SoulCollage cards of mine, go to Flickr on sidebar and open the SoulCollage album. Or, track the ‘SoulCollage’ and ‘collage’ tags here on the blog.