Vignettes

These pieces are an offshoot of the Photoshop lessons. 

I took photographs on my digital camera of my boxes full of collage stuff and loaded them onto my computer.  From Camera Raw, I made vignettes of the images and used filters to try and create images that look more like printed images than photographic ones. 

Some work better than others right away.  Some images were too cluttered or too dark; some photos reacted better to the application of artistic filters than others.  Sometimes the filters drop out sections of the images without apparent reason – there are no layers to style.

These are my favourites.

Vignette #7

Vignette #10

Vignette #11
 

Vignette #14
 

First digital collages

In January 2012, I finally began my lessons in Photoshop in earnest.  It seemed like a long delay before I was really able to start using the tools to begin making collages digitally.  I had also ordered my own Epson 9900 printer and a new 17” Macbook in the October but the printer, which I had been told would take a few days, turned out to take almost 3 months to arrive.  I was also supposed to receive a $1000 rebate but didn’t.  Avoid Unisource Canada if possible.

Once the printer arrived, I needed to have the computer calibrated to the printer and fortunately had the help of Barb Reimer who is the photo tech for the Art Dept. at the University of Saskatchewan.  She did the calibrations and gave me my first lessons on how to use the printer.  I was anxious to see the collages I had scanned in print so spent quite a bit of time printing many of the 54 handmade collages I had adapted to prints.  I originally used Epson Ultrasmooth Fine Art paper but found it too smooth.  I switched to the Epson Somerset Velvet, which had a surface more like traditional printmaking papers, and found I liked it much better.  The results were great at least from a print standpoint – a surface like rag paper and the color, as the Epson technician had assured me, was magnificent.

Before I could even print the first collages I’d scanned I had to clean up the decaled edges on Photoshop so had to learn how to use it.  I had never used Photoshop before in my life.  Jeff Smith and I had discussed how to proceed earlier and decided to bring 2 Masters students in computing science – one to teach me how to use Photoshop and one to develop new applications.  My Photoshop instructor has been Aryan Zahoorian and Faham Negini has been busy designing a special application for this project (more on Faham at a later date).  Aryan has been a great Photoshop teacher, showing great patience with a fairly thick student. 

My first attempts at creating collages digitally were not very good but I got better after a few attempts.  It struck me that I needed source material to make collages like the ones I’d been making by hand in order to learn Photoshop.  Looking for online images seemed too slow for now and the images, for the most part, were all small jpgs.   I realized that I could use all of the files I’d just created from the scanned collages as an archive from which to create new digital collages that were similar in certain respects to the collages I’d been making.  At one point, I realized I knew enough Photoshop to select, cut, and paste in layers – the same process as hand made collages. 

Digital Collage #12
2012

Digital Collage #17
2012

Digital Collage #22
2012

Digital Collage #26
2012

Digital collage #36
2012

Digital Collage #30
2012

Digital Collage #33

Digital Collage #37
2012

Digital Collage #36
2012

I discovered very quickly, though, that I had way more options using Photoshop in constructing the collages.  I could, first of all, change the scale of any selected piece; I could easily slide layers in underneath existing layers; I could drop out white or even colored backgrounds; and I could employ layers effects and transparencies.  It made a huge difference and I already like the new digital collages more than my original handmade ones.  These felt more like the prints I wanted to make 20 years ago.

These collages were made in the summer of 2011.  I wanted some newer collages to scan and print as part of the project.  These are again handmade and book-page size and made from the same kinds of materials as earlier collages.  I still have a lot of materials that I’ve been collecting and saving for years and at this point was assuming I’d continue to make the handmade collages alongside learning to make them digitally. 

While I once made a collage a day, I am now tending to work in spurts – producing a few that I like before hitting a wall.  It’s easy to be repetitive or fall into too predictable patterns.  Also easy to cling to the types of things you’ve been using.  I’m aware now of my ‘affectations’ for certain kinds of materials.  I’m still using old or stained papers and newsprint, historical imagery, print culture stuff from travelling etc.  I found some brown packing tape with lettering that I liked and used that in many of the new ones.

A bricoleur works with what they have on hand but my collection of on-hand stuff has all been selected and collected by me over the years.  Certain kinds of printed materials such as glossy photographic images by professional photographers have been avoided.  I still like photographic images to be on soft paper and printed using half-tones etc.  I use photographic images from sources such as old Pravda or other newspapers printed in coarse half-tones and like them more for their texture and mundane nature than their aesthetic content. 

I’m a history buff and read a lot of histories.  The collages don’t reflect the materials that I read but do have the affectations of historical themes and images.  I think of collage as always addressing ideas about memory in a way but history and memory have a loose connection at best.  How accurate or encompassing is either?

I tried, in these collages, to introduce more of my own indirect history by including things that were saved from travelling.

I’ve started asking any visitors to my studio whether they find the collages too nostalgic looking or worn out aesthetically, too habitual, too pointless and uninteresting.  I’ve been trying to add other kinds of content and break up patterns and ask people which collages and which kind of collages they like best.  Everyone answers differently. 

First Prints

These are the first digital prints I made based on pre-existing collages in 2009/2010.

I had originally talked to Patrick Bulas, who is the printmaking technician at the University of Saskatchewan and an accomplished printmaker, about perhaps scanning and converting some smaller collages into larger digital prints on rag paper and asked for his assistance and the use of the printmaking studio’s large Epson printer.  Patrick agreed to scan the collages I gave him and to my surprise went ahead and printed one on a sheet of rag paper as a test.  He printed Collage #73 and I was happy to see it pinned to the wall of the digital lab one day when I went in.  I was really pleased with the results, as was Patrick.

In the Spring of 2011, again with Patrick’s help, we printed the collages seen here on 22X30” BFK Rives rag printmaking paper.  The BFK has decaled edges so had a few problems with the edges picking up black ink smudges from the printing heads.  The Epson printer in the printmaking area had seen a lot of use from students by then so was getting a bit finicky.  Also the BFK Rives is not coated and I later had an Epson technician assure me that I would get much better color results if I used the coated rag paper developed for the printers although I was pleased with the color and the print quality.

#57

#54

#73