Collage is the medium for Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book. The illustrations are a mixture of small stickers stuck on, or bits of pencil drawing, watercolour, photographs, scanned images, rubber stamp printing etc...
Like this image for the Stuck section of Moody Days, which was made with rubber stamps and drawings on tiny stickers.
And this one from the title page. (Every sticker is a different face but it didn't take long too do, just mad sticker frenzy!)
And this one from the title page. (Every sticker is a different face but it didn't take long too do, just mad sticker frenzy!)
When I was searching through old portfollios for this blog, I came across this drawing I did at five or six years old and I thought it was strickingly similar to the Spots above. Even though I hadn't seen it for over thirty years.
Over my career I have used many different artforms for my animation, instillations and graphic work, from motorised sculptures to jewellery design but, my favourite has always been collage.
Grandma's knitted tie and hangman earrings 1978
So for this week and the next few weeks blog, I am going to show you some of my old collage illustrations from the days before Photoshop was invented. These designs show partly the evolution of the sticker style in Moody Days.
One example of my student montage work is this poster for the Royal College of Art M.A Degree show in 1983.
Each character included in the poster was a collage of different students work, from different departments in the college.
I was quite naughty because, before checking with anyone, I found the technician who was printing up photographs of student work for the degree show catalogue, asked him for all the reject prints and also got others out of the bin.
Back in the graphics studio, I cut them up, drew into them, photocopied and then coloured them.
Emma Calder in the Graphics Studio at the R.C.A 1983.
After I had done the artwork, I tracked down students whose work I had used and got their permission. I accidentally forgot to tell one person and when he saw the printed poster he got very annoyed. I had used a piece of his product design, for the head of one of my characters. He did forgive me luckily. Trouble is, if I had asked everyone in advance, people might have said no, or grumbled if their work was not included. You have to take chances in life sometimes.
Emma Calder with Paul Javis and Stuart Jane in the Graphics Studio at the R.C.A 1983
What an interesting blog post. It's great to get a sense of the evolution of your ideas. Did you know there's a nice review of Moody Days in the latest Grafik magazine (issue 182). It says their favourite line in the book is "When I was a child I used to watch dust particles all day long. Now I am grown up, I google myself all day long."
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