bits & pieces-collage

collage comes from the french coller, to stick. a better description would be "glueing together bits and pieces of unrelated images including previously used commercial materials to create something unprecedented". it has a long history although Braque and Picasso and usually given credit for its "invention". between the two, Picasso used a wider range of materials-everything from sand, wallpaper, printed papers to dimensional objects. since the 1920's many artists have explored collage from Hannah Hoch, Kurt Schwitters to Rauschenberg and beyond. a collage artist whose work you might not be aware of is Fred Otnes. his book (of the same name) is available through amazon. his work may be considered somewhat traditional in subject matter but he has a wonderful sense of materials, imagery, composition, color and surface. so why bring up collage? encaustic is great for collage. the wax becomes the glue but with no waiting for drying and it is completely reversible. plus, by building up layers you can create depth and many types of surfaces. once again you might also want to refer back to the master-Jasper Johns-and revisit his interpretations of collage using encaustic.