More Garden Songbirds

As I've posted previously, I am enjoying creating mixed media collage paintings lately. Since re-organizing my studio last June, I had planned to spend the winter months creating collages to use as backgrounds for paintings or prints. I have more paper of all types and ephemera than I will ever be able to use up!

While working on the Garden Songbird Series, I kept coming up with different papers and colors to try. Here are two sets I've just completed.

With these, I began adding old loan payment stubs which are stamped with the date the payment was made. I found these among the papers my grandmother saved. I'm not sure what the loan was for, but it was paid off between 1977 and 1979. It looks like she made weekly payments. She probably made weekly trips to the bank to deposit her paycheck and made a payment on the loan while she was there. Since each date is unique, I have decided to use them to name each mixed media painting. Also added to these collage paintings are handwritten notes of many types which I retrieved from the recycling basket over the years. These include computer programming homework dating back to 1997 when my husband returned to school to study that. Also included are calligraphy practice done by my daughter and music notes from when my son took bass guitar lessons. I have also added pieces of the many to-do lists and other notes I write on pieces of scrap paper. These may be obscured under the colored tissue paper or the paint applied on top, but I know they are there. Working with these pieces of family history, I am connected to my family, even when they are not physically with me. 

These six mixed media collage paintings are available at my Etsy shop.

Attitude of Gratitude Journal - Social Media and Technology

Continuing along with the month long Attitude of Gratitude Journal challenge, here are Days 5 and 6:

Social Media and Technology are related topics for me so I combined the two themes. Once I read the themes, I knew I wanted to incorporate some of the ephemera related to technology that I have. The technology illustrated in these book pages and postage stamps are antiques to us today. At one time it was the latest technology. It makes me wonder what unknown technology will exist in another 50 to 100 years.

The techniques involved using specific products which I do not own. They are essentially water removable inks in a spray bottle and a water brush. I tried the technique using diluted watercolor paints. Once dry, the paint did not want to lift off the paper. I used the left over paint to dye tissue papers. When these are dry, I will use them on a future journal page.

The book pages, if glued directly to the journal pages, would not have left much room to write. I glued them on to double sided scrapbook paper and then adhered these into the journal as separate pages.