Falling Back in Love with Collaging

Ahhh...I have fallen back in love with Collaging. "Back" in love because there was a time where I collaged often and loved it dearly. Creating collage posters as a teenager, which included the heartthrob of the week cut from Tiger Beat magazine...Collaging together scrapbooks with pictures of my life, mostly during my 20's and 30's. Then, in my 40's, I fell back in love with Photography and collage work went the way of so many of my hobbies...into a drawer or closet, biding time until the spark of creativity struck again.

Film Photography led to Digital Photography which led me to discover Photoshop which led me to creating Digital Art which in turn led me back to Collaging. Life always comes full circle, doesn't it?

So here I am, perusing old vintage ads, paintings and photographs in the public domain as well as boxes of my own ephemera, pictures and collectible postcards with the hope that one image will start that avalanche of creative flow. My latest piece was inspired by a faux French Travel Poster stuck to a window at Epcot, DisneyWorld.

Paris, je t'aime (Paris, I love you) included 8 images, all layered carefully one atop another in Photoshop, masking, erasing, dodging, burning, using blending modes, opacity, curves and filters to create a seamless composition. I have hundreds of images of France...how to pick the right ones for a collage? By being picky...matching colors, resolution and textures. Collaging is like getting dressed...you can over accessorize and ruin the whole look. :)

I don't know how long this romance will last as my creative self tends to be finicky but for right now, I'm deep in love with Collage. :)