This is the second upcycled collage I completed last week. It was very satisfying to sit down for the day and come away with two completed collages. You should’ve seen the HUGE mess in the studio when I was finished.

Normally with the books I use in my altered book work the cover of the books ends up hidden away. This one was much too nice to not feature in a composition and so it’s ended up as the background for this collage.

I chose the crane for this because it was the first thing I came across when I opened the bird encyclopedia to select a bird. It seemed like the perfect one to go with the colours and flower motif. I decided to continue with the paper waves because the crane is also a wading bird.

I sorted through the pile of saved envelopes looking for something that would go well with the patterns on the cover but wasn’t the usual blues of security envelopes. I found one with this grey pattern that feels very Japanese, and it ended up being the perfect thing.

Materials used: book cover, thread, paper bird, book page scraps, security envelopes, and gel medium.