Samurai Swag

I recently found a few "Afro Samurai" posters while cleaning out the closet. They were picked up at Comicon a couple years back with the sole intention of making them into some kind of collage. Finally, I got around to doing it! I think the sliced strip pattern works well from the derived source material.

"Confined" - IF

First collage of the year! It's certainly felt like a while since I have posted one, but I have not been without ideas! This is also the first time I am trying a piece out of a new "medium", paint samples. I must say there was a few tricks in using this material and it will take more experimenting to really get a sharp look out of it, but I am satisfied by my first go at it and it is certainly something to continue working with. This also marks a triumphant return to "Illustration Friday", which feeds artists a topic once a week to be wrestled into art.

Following Through

Following through on one of my quick collage ideas from a few days ago...

Freeform Composite Collage

This collage was made on 6x6 matte board and was a trial run of a collage style I have been wanting to attempt. In addition to composition and balance, the illusion of form and space was also an intended goal.

Luck of the Draw

I had Jury Duty on Friday, and this collage was a bit of a nod to the day as a whole for me. And for the record, I was reading Ian Fleming's Casino Royale whilst waiting endlessly for my name to be called, which thankfully it never was.

This one is 6"x6" on matte board.

The Station Fire

This collage came together today in a little collage workshop that a friend hosted. We had an informative and enjoyable session for a few hours, learning some good techniques.

The piece didn't start out as but somehow evolved into a response to the out-of-control fires that are currently plaguing Southern California and in particular the LA area. The largest of the fires in the state is fairly close to us just north of Glendale. It was dubbed the "Station Fire" though I am not sure why it was given that name. This fire seems to keep spreading and causing more and more damage by the day. We can only hope they take care of it before it rips apart too much more of the area.

Shards of the Subconcious

This collage was compiled last night out of a stack of doodles that I recently salvaged from old notebooks of mine that were getting thrown away. Sometimes the lines and scribbles that work their way out onto the margins of lined note paper can lead to grander ideas, but oft times they just get forgotten and filed away with whatever pertinent information was jotted down.

These shards of the subconscious have been assembled almost haphazardly into a field, but even still, patterns and connections emerge and unfold as a map or a window into a string of lost moments unified by a slight sense of boredom and busy fingers.

Green Collage - Final Product

I should have scanned this before I varnished it... too shiny now to scan I think... Perhaps I will try again tomorrow. In the meantime here is the long awaited Green collage (which I fully intended on submitting to a gallery for a "Green" themed show, but I don't think that's going to happen, but I am going to submit it to another show, the "Winter Gallery" at work).


I made this collage on a wood block and I think that actually worked out really well for the idea that I was trying to get across with this one. The wood block also makes it suitible for hanging as it is, without additional framing.

Pale

Another one of my small strip collages. Wanted to post this one on Illustration Friday, but I'd feel a little lame posting it the following Thursday. Maybe next week I'll get on the ball!

Regardless, I am pleased as to how this one turned out. Again, the scans really don't do any justice to these pieces, there is a whole other dimension to them when you see them in person.

YES WE CAN!!!!

It took me almost a week to make this collage, but it was worth it, and I finished just in time for Election Day!

Its my small way of lending my skills to the cause (If only the inspiration bug bit me a little sooner.)

Get out there and VOTE tomorrow, everyone! Leave nothing to chance and don't take anything for granted. With one day to go, it aint over yet! Go Obama!!!

Small Strip Collage #4

Another in the series... Not quite as successful as some of the others, mostly due to some of the pieces getting jacked up in the cutting. But, you learn and move on.

Small Strip Collages

I knocked out a couple more small strip collages over the weekend. They turned out alright. I was more excited about the technique I worked out on the second one. These were made in the series of small collages that I have been making lately, and were both 3.5" x 2.5". The intent is to just make a ton of these things. They are averaging a day or two a piece at this size.

IF - "Clique"

This collage was done in response to the Illustration Friday topic of 'Clique'. I didn't think I was going to come up with anything for this week, but the next thing I knew I was whipping up another collage. I'll let this one speak for itself...

PS: This was also made in the 3.5"x2.5" format. Its a little smaller so instead of a weel of cutting tiny pieces, its only taking two nights.

"Island"

Cloud City is the ultimate Island in the Sky. This strip collage was the result of the most recent studies that I posted. Its the first one of its kind in that the image on the large pieces is obvious, with black strips making up the entire infill. Final collage size ended up being 2.5"x3.5".

"I see a city in the clouds..."

CD Label Leftovers

Made this arrangement with a mess of those center stickers that are leftover from printed CD labels. Sometimes I just can't bear to throw away something mostly useless that I find while cleaning...

Freebie Blues

While Comic Con was a couple weeks ago already, I still find that i have a sizable pile of crap, swag and miscellaneous handouts to last me until next year. Rather than just pitching all of it, per usual, I decided this year to do something more with it. And so I have! In what is the first of what I expect to be a few pieces, I present this collage. It's mostly formal and acted as sort of a bridge outside of my usual pure abstractions and strip collages. My preliminary sketch is also shown below, and it really turned out quite different. The background initially was going to be entirely covered with strips, but it just seemed a waste to cover ol' Wolverine completely...

Found

A couple days ago I found this swatch-like collage that I had made some time ago with tiny scraps from something i was working on at the time. Tiny, tiny strips packed together never looked so good. At least not on this blog, they haven't.

Unfinished Business

In an effort to make good on a goal to "finish what I start", I found a half-completed collage that I had begun several months ago (which had found a nice dark place to hide since then) and spent some time over the weekend finishing it. This particular collage in the series was 8"x8" in dimension, whereas all previous pieces of this nature were 6"x6". It was initially conceived as a stepping stone in development of this idea into larger pieces.

Silence Broken!

Well, it has been several months since I have made so much as a peep on my blog. But I'm BACK! For now, at least... I suppose i should find a new name for the blog, seeing as though Not A Day Without a Line drawn can hardly describe this site. I will save that matter for another time.

While, I have not been sitting by idly, there haven't been many, or ANY substantial finish products with which i could make my Triumphant Return. Sketches and Doodles abound but never anything quite finished enough to put up here. The point of this project as a whole, though was not about putting finished products up here, but showing thought progress and rough ideas as well. Somewhere along the line I forgot that, or I was just busy with end-of the year-dealings, or BOTH!

But that matters not, as I am here and now!

I finished this collage last night and will be sending it out to my sister for her birthday. It was a return to an earlier theme and collage process that I was exploring last year, and this particular one I have had in my mind for a while. At the risk of spoiling the surprise to her, I am posting it here, where I'm confident she has looked for some time.

This is also the first collage of its kind with a title.

"Do You Know What I Went Through To Get This???"

Whitman's Sampler

Here is some stuff that I have been kicking around for most of the month of August. Its more development and tests of a style of collage that I've been working on. Another completed collage is posted at the end.