A Collage.

I am a great fan of collages. Since I was a child, I loved to draw and paint, but I also enjoyed cutting out bits and pieces of paper, fabrics and most of all, photographs, creating my own art. Some of these are still on display in my home today, like this one on the left, summarizing a period of twenty years in my life, depicting family and friends and the best moments in my past.

The words collage originates from the French coller, meaning to glue. As quoted by the wikipedia:
"A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs... glued to a piece of paper or canvas. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique made a dramatic reappearance in the early 20th century as an art form of novelty."

Today of course I enjoy creating a digital collage, in fact I find it is becoming a great hobby of mine. Many of you have expressed an interest in my collages or mosaics - which I often share here with you - and have asked me how I make these. Well, I love to sit down with my laptop on the weekends. It is a MacBook and my faithful companion. I have no idea what I would do without that great piece of technology - I rely on it every day. In any case, now during the winter, I prefer a spot by the fire and as my favorite compilations are played in the background, I plug the memory card from my camera into my computer, releasing all the images from the week onto the hard disk. Then I slip into another world for hours, as I create and compile my digital photographs using my favorite software, Adobe Photoshop. I forget time and place while I categorize all the snapshots into new images, that will become sentimental memories. I guess making these is the best part of every post, I have to admit. The collages I create do help me to convey my thoughts to all of you, while supporting my writing. Often the best ones are eventually made into prints and end up as postcards, christmas cards, calendars and eventually some as lovely additions in my photo albums.

Below a collage of collages, just a fraction of those I have shared with you here over the course of last year.
(As always, please click to enlarge.)