Masuda Karashi

Masuda Karashi's work just amazes me, I cannot get enough of her strange characters that walk confidently away from the abstract wreckage of newspaper photographs that launched them, they are  reincarnations from a surreal imagination and I couldn't love them more.

Paloma Corral & Kike Ibáñez

Paloma Corral and Kike Ibáñez's 'Jason and the Argonaut' 2016 Editorial Milrazones, is a masterpiece of collage and collaboration.

 "The main technique used was collage. We found it easier to work with four hands in this technique considering that each person's style is very different. It is amazing how we have used different resources on each page but all together form a common whole. There are scenes where we work with paper bases creating textures that we then cut out to form the main element, there are other scenes where we painted directly on the base paper creating very different elements graphically and this gives it a very funny character. We have worked mixing many techniques, acrylic, inks, gouache, photocopies, transfer, false monotype with wax, colored pencil and graphite pencil." Paloma and Kike  

Elisabetta Bianchi I

I love the vastness of Elisabetta Bianchi's tiny figures, they occupy a larger than life presence in the imagination and seem to belong to a historical tragedy. They are enigmatic captures (collaged) that make you contemplate their true and fictional stories.

Lois Ehlert II

A shoal of surprise fish from the pavement. This is Lois Ehlert's' 'Rains Fish' from 2016. Here Lois has composed fish from found objects to get children to embrace rainy days and look for and make magic. 

“It is these gray winter days that stir my creativity,” Ehlert says. “I am so happy to stay in and work. I am sitting here right now with a bag of scraps on my drawing board. I have green paint underneath my fingernails. I am as happy as a clam.” Lois Ehlert

Denise Hoyle

Emma Mason of Emma Mason Prints is producing a book on Denise Hoyle, and after seeing these two examples of her collages I can't wait. Denise Hoyle was married to the printmaker Walter Hoyle (1922-2000) and has worked in ceramics, collage, drawing and painting.

Michèle Gravel

Michèle Gravel takes children's art and cleverly and sympathetically collages it into dynamic, bright, wonderful, large compositions for the family home.

Jo Waterhouse

These collaged images by Jo Waterhouse are from a series of works inspired by British Folk costumes.

Motomitsu Maehara

A collaged joy of a Blackbird by Japanese artist and musician Motomitsu Maehara.

Gek Tessaro III

Gek Tessaro's work is always strikingly inventive in this book Cavalcavia he has collaged cut coloured paper to create intricate patterns on the horses and knights charging across the pages.  

 

Sophie Herxheimer III

Sophie Herxheimer's collages in the last few weeks have revealed that limbo of being between the seasons particularly the desperate wait for Spring. Trapped in the black and white time of winter with splashes of colour and hope shining through.

Giordanne Salley II

The loneliness of this tortoise image by Giordanne Salley is almost unbearable, but also beautiful.

Giordanne Salley I

Pictures of bird cages are often appealing, the lines tracing the ornamental wire work, the wobbly architecture of a fragile containment of space and the lovely birds. These beautiful pictures are the some of the collage works of American artist Giordanne Salley.

George Douglas Workshop II

Here are two of my beastly collaged monoprints a giant fly and a rough tongued cat (based on our own).

George Douglas Workshop I

Above: my favourite, a giant woodlouse monster .

 Above: Elizabeth O.Dulemba. Below: Rebecca Edwards

These are some pictures from the Picture Hooks workshop with George Douglas that I attended last weekend. At the end of two days, of sometimes frenzied printing, we spent 3 hours making monsters, for as George rightly pointed out; "Monsters cannot be wrong and they don't have to be pretty." Freedom! The only constraint being our attachment to certain printed textures and visuals, that needed to cut and splice into their new beastly incarnation. 

The creativity, humour and ingenuity of my fellow students knew no bounds, their bestiary was wicked, funny, stylish and fabulous. Above are some examples of their wonderful work.