I tried to make a video about this collage but it didn't turn out, so I will do my best to write about it here. In order to make thinks easier, I numbered certain sections that I would like to highlight.
1. This collage didn't go entirely as planned. This was supposed to have lots of giraffes and another postcard from Attic Books. That being said, I did know that this collage would include the title, "How to be a Triple Threat", which was cut out from Golf magazine. I also liked the "Movie Night" idea so this collage has two titles from those words. The movie night and movie reel pieces were from a Pizza Pizza ad, I found the lady in the movie theatre inside an Elle Canada magazine that I got during a trip to The JUNO Awards in 2011. So I thought this was sort of timely since I finished it the day before the awards aired again on CTV.
2. Last year, I discovered that I could transfer temporary tattoos to paper, so I started to buy some on EBay and Amazon. I don't like spending money on collage items. I prefer to "find" things or reuse stuff I already have. Sometimes though, if the cost is reasonable and I know it will enhance my work, I will buy small things here and there. I bought this tattoo and several others in November. I knew they were coming from China so it would take awhile, but after 2 months, I assumed they were lost. I only spent $5 altogether so I didn't think it was a big loss. Then one day they showed up in January and I was so excited! The owl seen here was so big though, I can't imagine wanting that as a tattoo. I also have postcards that have patterns on them which I had planned on using with the owl as a background but they weren't big enough. Then a couple of weeks ago, my mom sent me her friend's hymn book. I liked the title of one hymn called "Brighten the Corner Where You Are" so I used that, but the owl was still too big so I had to cut its tail off. (The hymn was copyrighted in 1913!)
This was the collage before the owl and many other things were added. You can see it had an accident. I put a sticker there and then I didn't like it. If you ever used to watch Art Attack, you might have seen Neil stick tape to his pants before he put it on paper. It sounds weird but because it would pick up all of the fuzzies, it would make it easier to take it off the paper later (I forgot to do that). Speaking of Neil, I recently saw a painting of him at The Arts Project in London.
Anyway, back to the collage. I am going to skip #3 because I already talked about where the movie reel came from.
4. I knew when I was doing this collage that I wanted to use a picture of a redhead because the main colours would be blue and orange. This wasn't the redhead I had in mind, but it worked out anyway. One day when I was at Fanshawe College last year to see a petting zoo, I stumbled upon a health fair and they gave me a poster that promoted a safe sex/substance abuse trivia game. This was apparently the villain and the superhero was called "Captain Condom". If that sounds familiar maybe you played the game or you saw that name in another collage....
It's always exciting to use pieces I have had for a long time, whether it's been years or months. So in the centre of the Triple Threat/Movie Night collage you will see a face and three Xs. I have been referring to the face as "The Face Guy" for a long time now. He was one of the first images I cut out for this project. I got him around Thanksgiving in October when my family and I went to Stratford. Some of the stores still had programs for last year's Stratford Festival and I eagerly took one. I thought the three Xs went well with the triple threat idea, but they were actually from a flyer for X rated hypnotist, Tony Lee. I cut Tony Lee off so I could flip the letters upside down and make them fit around the movie theatre lady's arm. There are actually people inside the letters!
5. The bottom was hard to finish. I started the collage later in the day and when I made the sticker mistake I knew it was time to go to bed. As seen before, I start out every collage with a big pile of everything I think I'll need. Often times though, I have to search outside the pile for something else because sometimes what I think will work doesn't actually go together. In my room I have a stack of magazines from the Chesley library that you can take for free, but in this case I used a magazine from Central Library in London. I thought it would work the same as at home, but this was not free. I wasn't impressed but the money went back into the library and I couldn't argue with that. Since this collage was movie themed, I had just the right magazine for the job.
This was a film magazine printed in the UK in 1997, so pretty much every movie that came out 20 years ago was in here. I cut out pictures from Bean and Con Air because the backgrounds were blue and orange but also, who doesn't love Mr. Bean and Nicolas Cage? On either side of them I used a business card and a playing card. The playing card is actually a Joker in a set of rainbow coloured cards.
6. Sometimes I find things on the internet that are too funny not to print out and include.
Yes. Yes, I do.
