Collage/Altered Art - Another Form of Cardmaking

Until I got caught up with the Stampin' Up craze, I created collage cards. I haven't made any lately because I can't seem to do both at the same time. Collage art is such a contrast to traditional card making or rubber stamping. Traditional rubber stamping techniques can at times be a bit confining in artistic expression and the focus tends to be the layout and color combination. Not that it's bad, just easier in my opinion - for this reason, I love traditional rubberstamping.

With traditional rubber stamping, there's a tendency for the cards to look somewhat similar from one artist to another. There's a uniformed appearance to the cards and the techniques are focused on the coloring of the images and how the images are laid out on the card. The cards are easily duplicated by others due to its uniformity and consistency of techniques.

Collage or altered art is a free expression using various mediums from scrapbook pieces, inks, paint, glues, paper, textures, techniques, coloring medium, or whatever else you may have lying around that can be used to create a card. Traditional rubber stampers sometimes see this form of cardmaking as "messy", "busy". . .I've had people tell me that it's just random stamping and gluing - "just a bunch of images and things slapped together".

Contrary to this belief. . .I find collage or altered art a lot more difficult to create because there's no "text book" way to create the cards. You can't look at another person's creation and attempt to duplicate it. It's pure imagination and creativity. There's no set measurements, colors, technique, etc. . . For this reason, it's a lot more difficult to create.

I like both forms but lately, my focus has been towards traditional rubber stamping but from time to time, I think I'll make a few collage cards and work on a few altered art projects. Just to add a new element to this blog site.

I just wanted to share a few collage cards I made in the past. What do you think of them? Just curious.