If you’re an artist like me who loves to experiment with different ideas and processes, you may have a whole bunch of unsuccessful pieces of not-so-great art taking up space in your studio. Last week I pulled out three of these, all on wooden cradle frames I wanted to reuse. Two of the pieces had heat transfer images printed on the surface, and one was a collage I never felt was “quite right”.

This one is my favorite of the three because I was able to retain some of the previous work with simple additions of Japanese paper and leaves. The face is a statue I photographed in the Egyptian museum in Berlin combined with a photo of lily pads. It’s a style of digital collage I haven’t done in ages (and no longer like).

With this second collage I decided to give it a simple tweak by adding clouds made from book pages and security envelopes. I’ve always like some part of this collage but felt it was more of an experiment than something representative of my “style”. Now I like it much better.

It also ties in nicely with the larger collage I made a few weeks ago with airships (which is sold now, by the way).

The collages are made on wooden cradle frames ready to hang, and are both available for sale through Etsy (and in person).