Design Elements: Irish Collages

These are some of the elements I used for the two Irish Collages. Some of them were downloaded as PDF files and not as JPEGs.

Irish Sheet Music & Postcard Collages

I made these two collages using vintage sheet music illustrated covers, one vintage postcard and one Dover design. Each of these is created using four different sources and each has at least 9 elements layed out and glued down. I found a really neat website that has vintage sheet music. It is the Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Collection. Visit Johns Hopkins University Collection Its site linked another consortium of vintage sheet music at the University of Southern California, Visit UCLA consortium This was lots of fun and would love to creat some more but I need to do some chores!

Daguerreotypes - Period of Use: 1839 - ca. 1860

Photography was one of the most important inventions of the nineteenth century. The daguerreotype was the earliest practical photographic process, and was especially suited to portraiture. The images created were so lifelike that some referred to the daguerreotype as a "mirror with a memory."
It was made by exposing the image on a sensitized silver-plated sheet of copper, and as a result, the surface of a daguerreotype is highly reflective. There is no negative used in this process, and the image is almost always reversed left to right. Sometimes a mirror inside the camera was used to correct this reversal.
The men and women who worked with photographic materials faced many challenges. Solving one problem often created another. The daguerreotype was expensive, relied on toxic material such as mercury, and could not be reproduced. http://www.floridamemory.com/

The Textured Black Gesso Challenge--Train Wreck!

Well, the challenge was to create a background using Black Gesso, highlighted with gold. Hmm.... I don't have any black gesso, tried to make black gesso by mixing a black reinker to the white gesso and, as Trish, Next Generation Stampers, http://trishbee.co.uk/ said "be careful you might get grey." I did, plus just a huge messy looking "thing." So, I altered the challenge by using the gesso and painted with Color Mists sprays, acrylics inks, Walnut Ink sprays, adding glitter to the gesso while wet to make a grainy look and highlighting with gold ink. I think I shall go out and purchase some black gesso and give this another try. (And, I'm going to purchase some better gesso---I think I have some really cheap stuff---runny!)

The Color Wheel Circle Fatbook Swap

I joined the The Color Wheel Circle Fatbook Swap on BookArtz, hosted by Jennifer C. This was such fun! I selected the color Orange and had a ball creating my pages.

An Angel Card for An Angel

This is the 4 X 4 page I made for a very sweet lady who has always been an Angel--from the moment I met her at the Art & Soul Retreat in Dallas, Texas. She has been been in every Fatbook Swap I have hosted for Art & Soul, except this one. She has had surgery on her shoulder and is unable to participate. So, I made her a page so she will not miss out! I was thrilled to find and old thread advertisement with this angel who was sewing around the world. I cut her out from the advertisement and created a new collage that says, "Wind Is the Love we don't understand, but feel." Get well soon, Dale!