Tag: collage artist
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Selling Art on Etsy
I recently made my 100th sale on Etsy, which feels like a good time to reflect on my experiences as an Etsy seller and share some tips for anyone considering setting up their own shop. My first collage zine I made my first Etsy sale back in July 2021, when I revived an Etsy shop…
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Sourcing Ephemera
My random collection of what I can only describe as stuff is an important source of inspiration as well as the raw material for my work. It’s possible I will only ever use a fraction of it, but its presence is necessary. This urge to collect, to gather, to surround ourselves with objects that please…
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Making a Zine
Back in the early 2000s, when I was a stay-at-home mum with two young children, one of the things I most valued was the people I connected with on LiveJournal, which was a fabulous place to find your tribe, ruined when it was sold in 2007, and to a large extent now replaced with other…
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Joseph Cornell and the Boxes
I’m currently reading ‘Art making, Collections & Obsessions’ by Lynne Perrella, which is an absolute treat for any mixed media artist who can’t resist collecting All The Things. As Perrella says, ‘Once a collector, always a collector’. As a child I collected stamps and Wade Whimsies. As an adult, I collected books and records. There…
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Checking In
It’s been a while since I posted here – not through lack of interest, just simple lack of time. I meant to get so much done in 2023, but the year is running away with me. I do have a tendency to try to juggle multiple projects at the same time (maybe I worry that…
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Impostor Syndrome
Impostor syndrome is something I’ve been dealing with since the age of 10, when I was informed by another child in my class that I hadn’t actually passed the 11+ to go to grammar school. According to this child, the head teacher had just randomly stuck a pin in my name. In hindsight that sounds…
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Art for art’s sake
I chart my life in books. A book title can spark a million memories: I re-read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” every year, and will always remember it as the first book I bought with my own (pocket) money when I was 9 years old. And I will never forget the day I discovered Sylvia…
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Reinventing Myself
On 2nd August 2021 I made my first Etsy shop sale: I didn’t really have any big expectations for how well the shop would do, but recently I notched up my 34th sale (plus a couple more via Instagram DMs) and I definitely feel I’m where I want to be. I’m in no hurry to…
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Image Transfer Techniques
Helen Kitson, 2022 : a piece featuring an acetone image transfer on a page from a vintage music book In my work I like to use original papers rather than copies, but there will be times when you want to incorporate an original image that feels too special to use. Generally, I would say don’t…
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Collecting Books About Art and About Making Art
I’ve always been a bookish person. As a child I devoured the books of Enid Blyton before moving on to more substantial literature. Everyone I’ve ever known, every important place and event in my life, can be mapped using the books I was reading at the time. These book-memories are almost as visceral to me…
Helen Kitson 