Collaging in #Februllage

February 2023

Finally (!) met a couple friends this month to catch up and have an artful hang out. I still had her Tupperware from Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas present for her, that’s how long it’s been. Let’s just say the end of 2022 and, so far, 2023 has brought us both changes, challenges, and opportunities for growth. After pizza and wine off we went into the studios. We went to the visual art studio (doggo followed) while her husband went to his music studio. Thankfully, he left the door open for his ethereal tunes to drift down the hallway for added inspiration.

The table was quickly covered with papers, scissors, and supplies. I brought some of my painting crops and we mashed them up with her amazing collection of papers. This month is coined #Februallage for collage artists around the world. There is a daily prompt (or theme) to make a collage each day of the month. That day’s prompt was “boat”.

We tinkered with the boat and sail shapes in our compositions. We noted different textures and colors. We shared stories about our saved clippings, “oohed” over artist postcards, and reminisced about various people/places/things. I collaged crops of my paintings and a museum brochure of a Japanese artist’s woodblock print. The cranes and sun are the focal point with the pieced landscape of mountains and water surrounding them. There is a small boat in the water below the cranes with a red sail. Looking at the final piece I notice a few things and wonder. Is the sun setting or rising? How is the sun in front of a mountain? Also, the scales of the focal point offer different perspectives and impact.

Someone made two boat collages (not me). I did make her an artist trading card (ATC) because she gave me one over the messy table. It was only polite and I was surrounded by material and motivation plus that is the point of a “trading” card. We traded more than cards that night. Lots of fun, decompressing, and creativity.