The bird collages made from upcycled materials continue this week with three new pieces almost completed. This is the first of the three, and also my favorite of them all.

The canvas for this collage is the cover of a wooden box, the rest of which I used earlier this year in another mixed media assemblage piece. The Japanese characters are part of the original cover design and I tried to incorporate them into the composition because they’re lovely.

It was fun to try different things with the same materials. So far I’ve mostly been making clouds with the scrap book pages and security envelopes, but this time it made more sense to reference water because these are shore birds.

The finished artwork feels very Japanese, and I love how beautifully all the elements come together.

Materials used: sewing pattern paper, security envelopes, book pages, paper birds, wooden box lid, and gel medium.