Mixed Media

To be honest I didn't really start out with that strong of an idea of what I wanted to do. Usually when I start a collage that's how I feel. I often just tend to go through random magazines (national geographic and rolling stone are my favorite) and cut out images that have some relationship to each other and that I just like the look of. Once I have a bunch of cut-outs, I organize them and see how they can fit together. I used a mixture of just stright magazine cut outs, newspaper clippings, and acetone transfers. Once I had cut everything out there seemed to be a war theme, there was a whole article on war in national geographic that I cut parts out, and I had really wanted to include airplanes.

I used collage because I thought it would create the most mismatched and jumbled look, while still all being united by a single theme, color, or idea. I wanted this to be a bit disturbing so I used elements of violence or war, I used items like planes and guns as well as just colors that I thought matched that idea. I used the acetone transfers to show that fading look that I feel like many war book photos look like. 

I started by experimenting with image transfers. I really wanted to transfer images from a magazine onto paper without just cutting them out. Originally I tried a bunch of different methods of gelli printing with acryllic paint, but nothing was working. I looked up different ways to transfer an image and acetone came up. I decided to try it. I put the image face down and I painted over the backside with acetone until it shone through, some were much better than others, so I only used the few I liked the most. I then arranged those together with the images I had cut out. With all those together I wasn't sure what I wanted to add to the background. I then had the idea to add some more color and texture, marker seemed like a good way to do that.