I thought I would give a little attention to some of my art cards and share the inspiration and process behind the designs. When I am at sales events I enjoy sharing some of the back stories to my collages as people browse or buy my work. Online shopping is a bit flat in comparison, you can see the images and read a little bit about the cards but the back stories are either condensed or left out altogether (depending on how and when I upload items to my shop). Each collage that becomes a card begins as a story from my everyday life. This one is absolutely that.

Walking is one of my favourite ways to spend time. I have embedded it into my daily life in the same way that I brush my teeth or take a shower. In the woods and/or near water is my favourite but I can enjoy pounding the pavements if that is not possible. I love hiking with friends and family and I love solo walks. When I was younger, the thought of walking alone simply for the sake of walking would have seemed ridiculous and I would have been far too anxious and self-conscious to even consider it. Now, solo walking is when I clear my thought process and allow ideas to germinate. I get antsy if I haven’t been out and feel immediately better once I have.

Consequently, By The Stream was a very obvious and literal collage to make.

Naturally I embellished the state of my walking boots and added a vintage element. I love the bright red laces and would love to go for that style when my current boots expire. The West Pennine Moors are beautiful but I wanted to add some imaginary floral colour pops to balance out the muted greens and browns. Someone once said that this card reminded them of Nepal and I loved that - it can be someplace and yet anyplace depending on who is looking.

All the paper elements are from magazines so you get hidden textures and patterns, images within images. My chunky yellow socks are from a picture of a hand-knitted jumper in a 1980s knitting pattern booklet. I have used that particular jumper on lots of other collages, snipping tiny sections off at a time until it has nearly gone. It feels like it has paper offspring hidden all over my work. As with most of my cards, By The Stream is what I would call occasionable. It might mean something to a fellow walking enthusiast or symbolise the start of a journey. It might even provide some sarcastic humour to those reluctant hikers we all know and love! Alternatively, it simply looks cheery framed as a little piece of collage art and needn’t go anywhere near a postbox.