Tag: mixed media

Evolution of a Collage

September 30, 2025

Dear Liza,

I needed to make a cover for my new Journal, and I wanted a collage. It’s a good size, 9x 12, so I had plenty of room to play with. I found a heavy tag backing from an old watercolor tablet to use as my base.

First, I pulled tons of colors and images from my collage boxes and Jennifer Coile’s gift of museum calendars. I trimmed them and laid them down, seeing who played nicely and who didn’t.

This is always a long process with lots of internal dialogue. I will make a decision to include a piece… in this case, that impressionist woman, and it takes a long time before I admit that it’s just not working. She was both getting lost and cluttering up the picture.

So, in goes the Egyptian hippo. Better, clearer, more focused. Still too many images. Pull them out. But where do the flowers go? Up, down? More discussion.

Every piece is chosen, placed, stared at, accused, forgiven, moved and shifted.

The last bit to be decided was the sun ( or moon). I wanted the blue to balance the bright hippo, but it looked too heavy. The circle cut from a rejected paper worked well, and the blue triangle set it off.

When I had stared more, had lunch, looked again and still liked it, it was time to glue it down. I went in sections, the top stripes together first, but not to the base paper.

I glued the hippo and flowers together, but not down yet. This makes placing the focal points less nerve-wracking.

When I was finally willing to commit, it all went together quickly. UHU glue stick, tweezers (so my fingers don’t get so gluey) and voila! Done!

After dinner I came back to admire it, and realized it wasn’t done yet. It felt stagnant. I decided to sleep on it.

By morning, I realized it needed a bit of movement. Again reaching for papers that had been put aside, I punched small dots and used a piece of string to figure out the line I wanted, and glued them down.

Now it was done. A coat of Mod Podge for a top coat and all was ready! Once it was dry I used Mod Podge to give a good adhesion between the heavy tagboard and the original, floppy journal cover. Under heavy books for a few hours, then out to finish drying, and it will be ready by the time I need it.

And this concludes our tour of the creative process.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Last ATCs Stateside

Dear Liza,

We will be starting our French sojourn in a few days, and I am getting some extra art time before we leave. I am enjoying experimenting with mixed media and new (to me, anyway) ways of laying down color and pattern.

Friday, I started by choosing some acrylics that seemed to go together; Marina blue, Violet, and Light chocolate. I measured, but didn’t cut, my ATCs to be 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.

Working with one color at a time and letting it dry, I put a drop of each color on the paper and scraped with an old driver’s license. I loved the swoops and how the colors overlapped!

That was a good start, but all those spaces seemed to need something. I picked up a #12 micron pen and drew some curves and dots. I kept it up until it seemed done. If I have learned anything in my short time learning art, it is when to stop.

I cut the cards apart and put my card on the back, and I’ll punch a hole so I can put them in my ring to share them in France.

Looking forward!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Scrapbooking Fifty Years

Dear Liza,

I’m making another book, because I really love making books! Also, with Grandpa Nelson and I celebrating FIFTY years of marriage, it seemed like a retrospective was called for.

My first thought was that it would be a simple photo album, maybe a picture or two from each of our 50 years. But the more I thought about it, I realized that I have some skills and imagination, and if I put them to work, this could be something worth sharing, maybe even passing down.

First, I needed a book to build the album in. Down at Belmont Books, Joe has all sorts of possibilities. I chose this one because it is sturdy, lays flat, and has enough (probably too many) pages to work with. Collage always makes a book much thicker, and I can tear out the leftover pages when I’m done.

For the covet, I found just the right papers in Auntie Bridgett’s collage boxes. A very 1970s vibe….

I went through my own collage boxes for postcards, maps and ticket stubs that will help tell our story. I also pulled dozens of photos. Since original photos from back then were printed on stiff paper, I used my scanner to make more flexible copies.

I’m afraid Grandpa and Bridgett are putting up with the dining table being a bit cluttered!

Still, slowly, page by page, front to back and with lots of moving and shifting (and not gluing anything down until I’m sure it’s in the right place!) it is coming together. I use mod podge as my adhesive, making sure to let each page dry and get pressed before building the next one. Each page will also have some sentences about what was happening at the time… I’ll type them in Bridgett’s vintage typewriter to feel old fashioned and cool.

As I collect pictures and remember more adventures, I keep shifting things… like real life, this project is going to be more complicated than I first thought.

But each page will tell of another adventure… even though some are not very detailed yet. All I can promise is that it probably won’t take a whole fifty years to get it done!

Love,

Grandma Judy

So Much Art!

Dear Liza,

My friend Jennifer is such a sweetie! A few weeks ago, she was up visiting from California and asked if I would be interested in ‘an art calendar’ to use in my collages.

“If you feel like mailing it, sure!” I smiled. I have learned never to turn down art supplies.

And just the other day, what come in the mail?? Three years of this art calendar!! A whole 1,095 pages, printed on BOTH sides. A whopping 2,190 pieces of art.

These are on good quality paper, and about 4 inches by 5 inches. That’s a lot of art!!

I am already feeling both inspired and overwhelmed. With just the two evenings I have spent flipping through and sorting, I have pulled a couple that seem destined to go together. These two, a fabric print and a piece of jewelry, look like a poster for The Lion King.

And this fellow, cut from an unrelated postcard, could use this millefeuille glass paperweight as a lovely mandala. He needs work, though…I’ll let you know.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Playing with Vincent

Dear Liza,

Falling deeper into the deep hole that is collage, I have started snipping at all sorts of things. Months ago, Bridgett and I picked up a bunch of postcards at the Portland Art Museum for almost nothing. Some of these became my latest victims.

There were lots of prints of Vincent van Gough’s works, and some of them seemed like they could go together. I carefully cut the elements of the cards apart and moved them around.

I liked this combination, showing Vincent’s lovely irises springing happily from head, while his face maintains a very serious expression. Having got the idea in my own head, the tiny fiddly bits became a problem. Fractions of millimeters became very important.

I also remembered to scratch the shiny surface of the picture with a pin where they overlapped so the glue would stick better.

And there you have it! My interpretation of Van Gough’s creative process.

That little gap between his head and his coat is on purpose, by the way. I liked how it mad him look a bit more wonky.

And finally, I got it the way I liked it, trimmed it up, and will mail it off to my friend Richard tomorrow.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Layers of Details

Dear Liza,

I showed you some of the acrylic cards I made with Ruthie Inman last week. After an hour and a half of gleefully painting, I had seven different card fronts in blues and greens, and no idea what to do with them.

I wanted to do something, though, and I decided to start with this one.

Looking for ideas, I hunted through my box of old projects, and found a leaf we did several autumns ago.

So I drew the leaf and put in the divisions. and then thickened the lines and rounded the corners with a micron 08 pen. I liked it, but I could tell it wasn’t done yet.

With the dark background, it needed something more in the leaf to make it stand out. I added a few dots, liked the look, and just kept adding. It was better. But not done yet.

Auntie Bridgett suggested that I make the outside a bit lighter. I used yellow and white acrylics, thinned with some medium, to lay down a few thin layers.

It still wasn’t right, but I was afraid to do anything to it for fear of making it WORSE. Bridgett to the rescue! “We can take a picture of it, put it in my computer with Procreate, and see which looks best.” This was a new idea for me, but I’m always willing to learn.

How about these dots on the outside? Nope.

Maybe outline the sections? Yellow? Or white?

That was it! Yellow, please. So I picked up a yellow Posca marker and made it right.

And boom, done, it’s on its way to you!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Poetry and Mixed Media

Dear Liza,

I have been taking a break from collage for a while, doing embroidery and other things. But this last week, I had a chance the chance to sit in on a poetry meeting with my poet friend, Kitty Petruccelli, and poet January Gill O’Neil.

I knew I’d want to keep my eyes and hands busy while I listened, so I chose some acrylics in colors that seemed to go together. Then I grabbed some pictures and words out of my collage box, mostly just taking what caught my eye.

As January and Kitty talked about Poetry, the American South, and Emmet Till, I laid down some background lines and smudges. I used my old California drivers License to scrape some purple on. As the conversation touched on concerns about life in America under Donald Trump, and my scrapes became a bit more frantic.

I found this woman’s face in the same colors, and liked her half puzzled, half panicked expression.

She needed more contrast, so a Posca paint pen helped out with that. It also helped add some interest to the swoops and corners.

A scrap of singed paper and words of dark times came to hand… “Before the Nazis invaded”.

And as the poetry talk finished up, I laid down the words “Laissez nous tranquille”, which means “Leave us in Peace” and added some tiny splatters.

Thanks, Kitty and January, for a poetic, artsy, emotionally-coping sort of morning.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Finishing Ruthie’s Dragonfly

Dear Liza,

A few weeks ago I started a new mixed media project with Ruthie Inman’s Zoom Art group. This week, I finished it up.

We were all aiming for a dragonfly of some sort, but we were using different materials. Ruthie debated between rickrack and an old bracelet, Vimi used paper and napkins, and I went with buttons. A hot glue gun did the trick.

For the wings, I went with plain paper painted with yellow acrylic and lines drawn in dark blue. I realized too late that I had used a water soluble pencil for the lines, which meant I risked smudging with any dampness.

I was very sparing with the Mod Podge and got the wings attached with no damage. Here it is in front of my monitor, with Ruthie’s hands working on hers.

I wanted a bit more depth to the wings because they seemed flat compared to the textures of the background and body. Thin shreds of tissue paper did the trick!

Not a masterpiece, perhaps, but very nice, and better than I thought I could do. Thanks, Ruthie!

Love,

Grandma Judy

New Ruthie Project

Dear Liza,

Ruthie Inman has done it again! She has gotten me started on a mixed media project that has so many stages, layers and materials, I can’t even see where it might end up.

Here’s what I started with: three colors of acrylic paint, a canvas board, some tissue paper and tule fabric, and some beads. I added other materials as I thought of them.

My piece is inspired by some Ruthie showed us on line; rich, layered, abstractly leafy backgrounds with something that may be a dragonfly on it.


I wanted some texture under the color, so I glued some thin cardboard shapes down, then some splotchy purple paint, then tissue paper cut in sort-of leafy shapes, which got purposely crinkled. I found some tule from my jellyfish costume and stuck that down, too.

It was a good start, but seemed too pale. I mixed some dark blue in with the purple and dabbed.

No No NO!!!

Way too dark. So I pulled out the white and dabbed some more, just here and there, because I want to it feel like shadowy leafy shapes.

At this point, our class time was over and my piece needed some serious dry time. I’ll think about what it needs, and what I could make the next layers out of, between now and our next class.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Danish Travel Journal

Dear Liza,

Yep, there is a new travel journal, and it’s heading your way! I will be bringing it this week when Grandpa Nelson and I visit you in Denmark.

As usual, I started with a nice thick mixed media spiral bound sketchbook. Their paper is good for writing, collage, and even watercolors, if you don’t get too wet.

My front cover is frenetic and busy, like I am feeling about the trip. I used a weird polar map projection and a compass rose to show travel, a flag and color scheme for Denmark, and words to tell about the excitement of anticipation.

Since most of our travel once we get to Denmark will be by car, my inside cover shows a road trip. The background started as a celestial map, and you can still see some of wording under the grey acrylic. I wanted a grey and red color scheme, and found all those little figures in a magazine ad for Target. Posca marker let me write in WHITE.

Since the back cover represents the end of the journey, it has words like ‘exhausted’ and ‘I had an enormous breakfast’ as well as things I hope to see. And just because I had them, I included the Danish national anthem in Danish and English.

Since every trip is different, every travel journal is different, and I can’t promise anything special. But I’ll show you what I come up with. Heck, you’ll probably see some of what I’m drawing while I’m drawing it.

And I will like that very much.

Love,

Grandma Judy