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Continuing in this mark making series, I will now explore collage as elements of mark making.

I will show each of six works in pairs. The first photo of each pair are marks made in collage of three different pieces. The second photo will be that same one with the addition of other marks of varying types.

Here are three different collage pieces, two rounded, one straight, one spattered, another with a scrapped texture, a third, solid:

Then with red watercolor crayon, spring green Pitt pen, and white dots with a Posca pen, and pencil scribbles added:

Next are these three pieces of collage: one high flow acrylic spatter, one dense heavy body acrylic, one latex drips and Posca pen on white (which recedes into the background). I forgot to photograph it at that stage, and added a brayer of intentionally mismatched, dark green fluid acrylic, topped with white drips of high flow acrylic allowed to flow in every direction:

Then I added a doodle in oil pastel in an unlikely (for me) color choice which connected the elements together:

Before I put the collage elements down on this next one, I cleaned off the brayer from the last one on this paper. Then I added a large piece of stippled collage paper in blue violet, followed by some red drips done in high flow acrylic, and some sharpie marker arcs on white which recede into the background while simultaneously being high contrast:

To this I added only some high flow acrylic drops in orange, resulting in my favorite of the six:

Two of these papers are black against white, but the black marks are very different, and one of those two collage pieces has yellow and red drips. The third collage piece is bright pink stippled with magenta, cut with straight edges because the two other pieces are curved:

I then added green paint in a whimsical, curvy, unmeditated shape, followed by yellow drops of high flow acrylic that I allowed to run every which way:

Again, here are two curvy, larger shapes– this time both solid colors– and one straight smaller one. The red piece was done with a dry brayer which is fun because the edges in places look soft even though they are not. The green piece is heavy body acrylic with crisp edges and a scraped texture. The small straight bit in hot pink is a stippled brush pattern in fluid acrylic:

I added Posca pen pink stripes, high flow acrylic yellow spatter, and heavy handed turquoise spots. The yellow spray dulled the smallest collage piece which was unfortunate:

And for my sixth and last piece, I put down one piece of colorful splatter, one of white spritzed finely on black with a mixture of straight and curved edges, and a third cut with zig zag scissors of high flow acrylics in puddled lines on a purple heavy body acrylic background:

Next I added whimsical, jerky, gold Posca pen with my left hand. I followed this by painting a solid burnt orange shape in fluid acrylic, topped with with black Posca pen dots in varying densities, which gives it a 3D effect, mimics in opposite the black and white collage piece, and looks like a collage piece itself but is not:

For me, these each have lots of breathing space, as I left unpainted white space in each, which highlights each of the marks and collage pieces as separate elements contributing to the whole.

These pieces were all 10″ x10″ and I could go on and on making them endlessly, for there is no end to the range of possibilities and combinations.

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