More Google Collages

I apologize to my few readers - I had intended to catch up on the blog and improvements this summer but suffered a detached retina and had to have surgery.  I've been recovering over the summer but I've been unable to do much on the computer.  Anyone who is actually following the blog, I thank you for your interest and hope you'll return now that I'm posting regularly again (I hope).

These collages are more Photoshop lessons.  I was thinking more about having to type in words in order to get images and materials for collage so was trying to think of words that were less specific such as generic, detritus, commodity etc.  I was also continuing to ask myself why I am attracted to certain kinds of materials or have certain kinds of "affectations".  While I like the idea of collage art made from cultural detritus and am interested in its connections to human memory, I wonder if it always has to be about "old" stuff.  I am currently collecting a lot of "old" stuff in my archive - mostly old paper and documents and old images of various kinds.  Do I need to be more contemporary in my ideas and activities in collage?  I thought about the Pop artists who were contemporary in their day (Eduardo Paolozzi and the English Pop collage sensibilities as well as the American artists) and thought about trying something in that vein.  Again, the work relies heavily on downloaded photographic images that have been manipulated with PS effects.

I've also added one of the still-lifes I was composing at the same time.  Again, I think of these as experiments or lessons and, as much as I admire Pop art, don't see myself really heading in this direction.

Digital Collage #63  Generic #1

Digital Collage #64 Generic #2

Digital Collage #68  Commodity 

Digital Collage #74 Still-life

Digiral Collage #82

These are more Photoshop exercises learning to use cloner brushes.  I do consider these as lessons and not how I see my work and interests in digital collage developing.   They are small files, made from small jpegs found in quick Google searches so I think of them as ‘Google Doodles’.   I didn’t realize that Aryan had disabled the cloner brushes he had installed for the lesson and I ended up having to use just the circle clone tool and created the collages using my finger on the pad on my MacBook.

While I’m not taking the images here seriously, I really like the cloning process and will use it more in digital collage making in future.  I especially like the combination of cloned images and mixer brushes which paint into the images using and smearing together their own colors.

 They are significant to me as lessons but also bring up a couple of things I’ve been noticing while learning to make collages from materials found online only.  I’m aware, first, of having to type in a word in order to get an image – a process significantly different from choosing materials for handmade collages (sort of).  Secondly, most of the images that appear in a Google search are photographs – something that never interested me much as a material for handmade collages.  Where I have used photographic images before, I was more interested in how the image was printed (halftones etc.) on cheap paper than an image on photographic paper.  I’m currently compiling a large archive of materials for collage that I have downloaded from the web and have been looking more for the type of materials I would use in handmade collage – old stained papers, ‘printed’ images etc.  More on this later.

I’ve noticed that when you do type in a word or phrase you’ll find images relating to your request to some degree but always a ton of cultural schlock.   Even if you type in “war” you are still likely to receive images of Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.  I’m not sure yet what to think of that enormous layer of cultural poop that essentially surrounds the entirely of the internet.  I hope I’m learning ways to cut through it in my searches for ‘interesting’ (???) digital cultural detritus.  The opposite end of the spectrum seems to be schlocky ‘vintage’ stuff for collage.

Anyway, these are a few of the Google Doodles.  As you’ll notice I typed in words or phrases such as ‘War’ (Clonecollage 11); ‘Cities at Night” and ‘Cities from Space’ (Clonecollage 10 & 13).  I think for Clonecollage 12 I just typed in ‘miscellaneous’.

Clonecollage #10

Clonecollage #11

Clonecollage #12

Clonecollage #13

Clonecollage #14

Clonecollage #15

Clonecollage #16

Clonecollage #21

Clone and Mixer collages

Aryan has introduced me to Clone and Mixer brushes.  Lots of fun but I’m again playing around, learning the tools, and now not even producing collages like the ones I had been making. 

These collages represent quick lessons, using small images from a Google search to use as examples.  I think of them as ‘google doodles’.  I really like being able to use mixer brushes to paint using the colors from the photographs and will want to use them again.

My partner Jaala and I had gone to New York while I was on sabbatical leave.  We had a great time and saw a lot of museums and shows.  Jaala was still excited about the trip for some time so I used images of New York to start.  I was also able to produce a couple of larger files using larger sources.

I’m not really sure what to think of them other than they are suddenly very different than anything I’ve done or thought I’d do.  It made me realize that I was never really interested in making collage from photographs but that this was a different way to approach collage.  One of my colleagues remarked that the look of the images suited the internet more than the look of the collages I’d been making which is interesting.  It brings up the subject of contemporaneity in collage -  something I think about a lot.  Still, I don’t think I’ll pursue photographic collage, especially using some one else’s images.  It makes me think about how to use fairly mundane and ubiquitous contemporary materials like the Pop artists. 

Clonecollage#1

Clonecollage#2 

Clonecollage#5 

Clonecollage#6

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.