I recently put my studio work on hold as I worked on making my portfolio website mobile-friendly. Now I’m trying to get back into the groove of things with my artwork. This small cityscape piece is my latest collage. I think I’ll work on a few still life pieces next.
Last night I completed my first collage in 2015. This piece was commissioned by a teacher from Washington state, who is having her students study my work in class. I think it’s absolutely wonderful that she reached out to me to have a work of art made that she can share with her students, so they can see one of my collages in person! I also had a lot of fun working on this piece – especially with the detailing for the gator’s scales.
And now I’m off frame and prep the collage for shipping…
The cold weather this weekend made it a perfect time to stay inside and work on some artwork. At the moment I’m experimenting with a few digital pieces, but I had a chance to piece together this small collage. The Washington Monument is something that has popped up quite a bit in my cityscape work. I like the simplicity of the monument, it gives me more room to play with abstract shapes of color and texture.
Here’s my latest small landscape collage. I’m feeling a bit uninspired by landscapes at the moment, so I think now is a good time to turn back to some still life food collages. That’s always the best solution when a subject isn’t inspiring me at any given time – just change things up a bit and shift to something else.
As an artist living in the Washington, DC area, I’m constantly inspired by the city around me. I like wandering around the National Mall, taking snapshots to save for inspiration for future works of art.
This particular piece was an interesting challenge – since the collage is only 5″x7″, the magazine strips I cut were incredibly small. Anyway, it was fun to revisit a familiar subject. My next piece just might be another landscape/cityscape collage.
A couple of years ago I completed a collage of the Air Force Memorial for a landscape/cityscape exhibit at the Arts Club of Washington. Just the other day, I decided to revisit this familiar subject matter by completing a smaller collage of the unique memorial.
I’m really beginning to enjoy making these smaller collages. They give me a chance to explore more subjects since they don’t take nearly as long to complete as the larger sizes I work in. However, sometimes they can take a while – it all depends on how complex they are.
This animal collage is inspired by one of my walks on the National Mall in D.C. Squirrels and ducks are definitely the most popular wildlife I find there – however, I always enjoy trying to find different ways of tackling a familiar subject. For this collage I decided to make the piece a little more abstract and focus more on highlights and shadows by using a monochromatic color scheme.
I decided to revisit my landscape/cityscape series by putting together this collage. Working on this piece made me want to explore other natural landscapes. So perhaps a new series will be underway? We shall see…I’m beginning to gather inspiration for a couple new animal collages that I plan to make in the next few weeks.
Here’s the latest collage in my food still life series. This piece was inspired by a deli in Chicago. I decided to make this one a little more on the abstract side. We shall see how the next pieces turn out… I’m planning to tackle a couple more food collages before turning back to some animal and landscape pieces.
Sunsets are always a fun subject to tackle – there are so many colors you can work with. I really enjoyed working on this piece, and I decided to incorporate bits and pieces of texture along with the usual solid colors. Over the past few years I’ve completed a couple other sunset collages, and I’ve noticed that all of them involve bodies of water. Perhaps the next one will be more of a landscape or just focus on buildings.