Owls and Towers

Images for collage can come from many places. Often I use clippings from magazines or draw or paint directly on my art journal paper. But I also have small drawings or paintings sitting around that I’ve never used. That was the case with these two owl drawings. In fact, there were three, but I decided to just use two of them for a better fit on my paper.

My original thought was to just glue them down‒one in the center of each side of the spread‒and then do a nice, neutral, grungy “frame” around them. So I got out my box of neutral color/pattern magazine clippings to see what might work.

But then I picked up an old Victoria magazine and began leafing through it. Much to my delight, I ran across these two pictures of old buildings/castles. Owls and towers‒perfect! So, time to regroup.

The magazine pages would obviously become the background for the owls, so I glued them onto the spread and let the adhesive dry overnight.

I spent a while just looking at the spread with the background, trying to decide what to do. Since I originally wanted a neutral piece, I decided to paint over the bottom parts of the two pages, the parts with all the color. I also painted over the text at the top of the left page, and over the dark pine tree at the right. To balance the blues, I added some to the left page.

Then I tore the owls out and tried out several placements until I found one I liked.

By the way, to tear them out, I brushed a line of water where I wanted to tear and let it sit for a tew minutes to soak into the paper. After that, it’s a lot easier to tear, as the paper wants to tear along the wet line.

I glued the owls in place then made an abortive attempt to paint the white margins around the heads, attempting to match the background. I didn’t put much effort into it before I gave up. Then I added some neutral collage to the very bottom. At this point, it was time to quit, as I felt myself getting sloppy.

I’ll look at it often throughout the week, trying to decide what to do next. But, for now, it’s just time to let it sit. I find the solutions to these types of dilemmas come in their own time.