More Mixed Media with Collage

by Karen Lynn Ingalls

"Notes on Art" • image © 2012 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I've been collecting my favorite quotations since I was first in college. Then, I would write them down on 3" x 5" index cards, and file them alphabetically by author. For this little series of mixed media pieces, I pulled out some of my favorites and combined them with vintage postcard images in addition to fabrics and special papers.

This quotation from Thomas Hart Benton really does get down to brass tacks, doesn't it? For all the fun and creative glamor people sometimes associate with artmaking, it really does just get down to doing it. Whether it's feeling fun or feeling more like pulling a tooth....

"Do It On Purpose" • image © Karen Lynn Ingalls (AKA Karin Johansson-Bolin, my "brush name" for work that looks rather different from my landscape painting)

This quotation from Dolly Parton gives one marvelous permission to live life creatively, doesn't it? It seemed to particularly suit this photograph of two girls in costumes they might have preferred to wear on more than just special occasions.

This is the kind of thing we'll be doing in this July's mixed media workshop, Paint, Paper, Fabric, & Collage: Adventures in Mixed Media.

In this kind of artwork, you combine whatever the heck you like - special papers, text from newspapers or magazines, photo images, fabric, lace - and quotations, if you have something special that seems to sum it all up. Layer upon layer, it becomes something special - it can be something fun, like this.

​It can also be something personal, using photocopies (not original photos!) of family photographs. These techniques are ones you can take in many directions.

Paint, Fabric, & Collage: Adventures in Mixed Media will be Saturday, July 21, from 10 to 5, at the Calistoga Art Center.