'Improvised in February'

This batch of exciting pieces all nod their heads to my muse, Kurt Schwitters. I have decided to mount all the paperworks on mount board to give them a slight depth. All the pieces are using ramdom scraps of paper to create the finished piece. Sometimes the scraps are picked because they give some harmony to the picture and others are just scraps left over from other previous pieces. The more inspired I am by Schwitters the more I want to produce pieces in his style. This month I was inspired by a link from the collage links on my home page by Launa D Romoff, take a look if you have the time at her website also inspired by Schwitters. My only complaint about her fantastic art is that she calls them all 'Untitled', but other than that it is a lovely website full of brilliant pieces. http://www.launa-d-romoff.com/

1. 'Aphic' - Title taken from National GeogrAphic. All random pieces left over from previous works and incorporated into the scramble of collage.

2. 'Circa' - Simple piece with a lot of browns to keep the pattern.

3. 'Imore' - Half a name, half a map, half a picture 100% finished piece.

4. 'Rain, Steam' - Title taken from the great painting by Turner called "Rain, Steam & Speed" which is housed in the National Gallery of London. When I first saw it I knew it was way ahead of its time in being abstraction at its best.
Turner's picture can be associated with the 'railway mania' which swept across England in the 1840s. It is also an outstanding example of his late style of painting. Sky and river landscape are dissolved in a haze of freely applied oil paint, to give a striking impression of the contrasting movement of driving rain and speeding train.

5. 'Rapsodic' - Before you all rush to your spell checkers this is the Spanish spelling. Music life and the half face.

6. 'Espagnole' - The Spanish for Spanish, I believe! This is one of my favourite recent pieces and I love the dark browns and the slant of the piece collaged.

7. '70' - Its all red, fabrics, wallpaper, coloured papers all give that feeling of darkness of night with a red sunset.

8. 'GO' - All the fun of the fair. Music, lights, alfresco and a girl alone.

9. 'Fare' - Also fun at the fair! Blurred movement, captured spinning lights. Fairground attractions, its got to be perfected.

10. 'Engraving' - As the cut-up words say "In this engraving court. The loss of his reign, it was a bsburgh family" Neon plays its part in the castle. Another favourite of mine for the juxataposition of the cut-ups.

11. 'UX' - Its the first time that I have got well away from the circles and gone onto triangles. This was an attempt at the style that was devolped at the turn of the 20th Century called cubism, Wallpaper, sheet music and newspaper all used in the construction of the finished piece. Picasso was credited with the creation of the collaged style and I admire this period in his work life. I have used wallpaper, newspaper and images of guitars all inspired by Picasso and Georges Braque. An example of the works of Braque can be seen here:
Glass, Carafe and Newspaper

12. 'Improvised' - For those of you that have been following the development of my style of collage over the last two years will know that this pieces is very like the early style that I devolped in April 2005. Why I returned to this style nearly two years on is beyond me but I know that it is one of the many styles that I will retain for further use in other pieces.
There is so much that you can do with a blank piece of paper and some scraps of torn images that I know I have a long way to go before I will be stuck for ideas.