Rosie Britton

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I find that one of the most satisfying forms of art-making is the creation of collages.  First comes the process of creating my collage materials, which to me is as satisfying as the collage-making itself.  As a collage maker I see almost everything as grist to the mill: I have been known to use tea leaves, seeds, pressed flowers, coffee grounds, mud, feathers and stitching, as well as more conventional things like dyed or painted papers, drawings and paintings, and digital prints.  More recently I have incorporated a lot of Collagraphs.  Collagraphs are prints made from textured plates that emboss damp paper as they are put through the press.  I find that collagraphs lend themselves superbly to being collaged as the juxtaposition of different textures can be so interesting.  For a while, after acquiring my press, collagraph printing became an obsession, but since I rarely leave my collagraph prints intact, I don't  see myself as a collagrah artist as such.

For me, the collage materials used are rich in associations, conjuring up the many happy hours spent creating or finding  them whilst I fill my heart and imagination with the spirit of my subject.  As a result, such collages are hard to part with! Many of my collages incorporate paint, and increasingly my paintings incorporate collage, so that it is difficult to distinquish between the two, but just occasionally I like to restrict my palette and my media and play in a disciplined way with the texture of either oil or acrylic paint. 

See blogs, 'Making Collages' and on collage Materials and the Evolution of a collage