Purely Collage Postcards

Recently I took part in the Purely Collaged Postcard CollaborArt challenge. This involved us making two "background" collaged postcards which we posted on to the next person in the swap. In the meantime we would recieve two backgrounds which we would have to collage a foreground onto and post on to two other people to keep. The twist being only collage was allowed - found magazine, book, newspaper images etc. Absolutely no ink, paint, pencils or other media of any kind. Yikes. A lot harder than it sounds and I have a new found respect for purely collage artists.

These were the two backgrounds I received from Rebecca (Bex)

Both already pretty fabulous and I was so worried I would ruin them. This is what I did before posting one on to Virginia and one to Sam...

That yellow fish was what caught my attention most. Then I found a vintage advert on an old newspaper page I had. It read something along the lines of "if fish could read they'd buy this bait" (I don't think they would somehow...) but it tickled me so that's what I went with.

Next up, that brown square looked like a window to me and the woman looked a bit scared. Found a vintage dinosaur comic strip in my box o' bits and it pretty much made itself . The wording all came from a fabulous "Wonderland of Knowledge" encyclopaedia that Craig's Mum gave me... he had told her to charity it! Flipping cheek. It's a treasure trove of gorgeous colour plates and interesting articles.

These are the two collaged backgrounds I made and posted on to Sam...

 You can see what she did with the foregrounds if you click here.

And finally, these are the postcards I got sent as final pieces.There was a bit of a mix up and I ended up with three. We've worked out that this first gorgeous one is to be posted on to Jazz. But I thought I'd show it anyway as it is rather fabulous and I'm glad I got to see it in the flesh so to speak ;)

 Background by Pat - Foreground by Irene

Background by Irene - Foreground by Jazz

Background by Jazz - Foreground by Bex

A really fun swap and really got the majority of us working out of our comfort zones. I do think I would like to explore more with collage... but maybe with some paint as well. Talking of which, I got a beautiful book for Christmas which is on my Artful Readers list - Collage, Colour and Texture in Painting. So watch out for my review and inspired by art from that :)

If you'd like to see how everyone else in this challenge did - come join us over at the CollaborArt blog.

Thanks for stopping by today :)