more tiny collages

because it turns out that 2 x 3" is a really fun size to work with, especially in little groups!

i know that #PutABirdOnIt is kind of a papercrafting joke, but i still really like collages with birds. especially these egrets, who all came from the same page of a vintage bird book, and are pleased to have been relocated as a group.

and no, i'll *NEVER* get sick of flowers. in any context. ever. so there.

vintage hawaiiana... oh how i love you. especially 1970's alohawear advertisements.

my cousin andrew's five year old son, karson, voted for zoo animals on this set of collages, and helped me choose which ones to feature. 

(we made some cards together too; i've actually never met a five year old with as much design sense as karson has, it's pretty awesome!)

every once in a while i sit and fussycut images that are much too big, and then kick myself for not measuring or, you know, trying to generally have a clue, lol. but then sometimes, i come up with a solution that's literally outside the box. plus... butterflies + postage are kind of cool together. who knew??

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hope you are having an awesome, not-too-frantic, december weekend!

(try to sneak in some fun creative time, even if it's just making address labels for your holiday cards, which is what i'm going to do RIGHT NOW!)

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a biggish collection of tiny collages

if you hang out with me on instagram, you'll know that my latest freestyle art obsession has been making tiny (2x3") chipboard-mounted collages, usually in sets of two or four. i'm having fun playing in a completely new way with vintage paper, rubber stamps and tape; also it's a great way to use up some of the smaller illustrations that would get lost on a big project.

the first set i made was way back in may, and featured these tiny sewing pattern ladies. any new project that starts with sewing pattern ladies can hardly help but be awesome, am i right?

some of my collages start by choosing an illustration, cutting it out, and building around it. others make use of bits that were intended for something else but not used. this is an example of the latter, and arguably the flowers are too big... but i like how they grow right out of the frame.

these tiny fish nearly got tossed out, because they're not even half an inch tall. i can see that i'm going to become an even worse hoarder now, since even TINY things work really well for this.

all of these flowers were in one cluster in the little flower book where i found them. i'm not sure why i thought they should go on a background made from a map of metropolitan baltimore, but i stand by that decision...

 

at some point i realized that even quite a big flower could work on this size of canvas, or rather canvases. 

my obsession with the "illustrated motorcars of the world" book from this summer amped waaaaaaaaaaaay back up when i discovered the cars are EXACTLY the right size for tiny collages.

playing with scale again... and with dividing the flowers in interesting places. pretty sure you'll be seeing this technique again. (and again... and again...)

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hope that all my american friends had an awesome thanksgiving and that my international friends are having the very best weekend of november 2017!