“Secrets” is an original, handcut paper and mixed media collage on 5″x7″ matboard.

Spent a whole day last weekend making painted papers for collage and had a blast playing with color and experimenting with mark-making. This background was one of those colorful little abstracts and I knew that the vibrant color would nicely offset some black and white imagery.

The lady is from a source that I’ve been dying to use, but have yet to find a perfect setting. She’s from a vintage “girly” magazine, with the theme of “BAD GIRLS U.S.A.” – and she was definitely a bad girl. The photo of our gal was taken in the back seat of a squad car! So she had some secrets.

Our guy was in a body builder ad from the same era, but his haunted eyes and expression seem to hide a secret, too. So this pair, I figured, could be the cover of a secret journal. What do you think they’re hiding?