For the past six months or so I’ve followed
the very talented Laura Redburn of Cardboard cities. As well as falling for the
beauty of her wonderful collages I share her love of cats, polka dots, florals
and of course Thrifting! So needless to say I have been hooked to her blog ever
since.
Laura is a collage artist who is currently
residing in Cardiff and is a keen blogger. For me Laura’s collages transport me
into a different world! They are charming, edgy and feminine all at the same
time, what girl could ask for more right?
Laura gives us a weekly snap shot of her week
post but lets hear for ourselves what makes inspires & motivates this gals
work!
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| all photos belong to Laura Reburn of Cardboard Cities |
Q. Hi Laura….. so just how long have you been
making Collages for and when did you make your first collage?
A.
Hey Kate! I have been making collages ‘properly’ since about 2008,
though i did dabble with them a bit before then. I can’t really remember my
first collage, but I can remember the first collage I made that made me think
‘THIS is what i want to do’ which was in those earlier days.
Q. Is there a meaning behind the name “Cardboard Cities”?
A. It actually came from a misheard lyric from
a Modest Mouse song, Tiny Cities Made of Ashes ..one day I was listening and
misheard it as “cardboard cities..” It always stuck with me for some reason,
and when I started putting my stuff up online, that’s what I decided to call
myself.
Q. Tell us where does your inspiration come from! Do you take yourself off to some kind of secret magical land that only you know about? (if so I’d love to visit!)
A. Haha, I wish! Normally I put on music, or
sometimes a film. I can get a bit distracted with films though, so generally
when I’m actually making something I’ll go with music. Films are great for
actual inspiration though, and some TV too. I actually discover some amazing
colour schemes from them both! Colour is a huge
deal to me. Or sometimes a bit of an idea will come to me from the way a scene
was composed. One of my biggest inspirations though is nature, and in
particular, flowers. As you may know on my blog I recently started a ‘Friday
Florals’ series to help extend that a bit.
Q. How would you describe your creative
process?
A. It varies, but generally I gather together
all or most of my folders where I keep clippings for collages and go through
them until I find something that strikes me. I keep on going to find things
that go with that, then play around to fit them to a pleasing composition. Once
everything is stuck down, I scan them into Photoshop to clean them up, correct
the levels, colours, etc then sometimes I may add extra little bits, but generally
I’ll keep them ‘as they are’. I think there is some amazing digital collage art
out there, but I find it so hard to create mostly digital work myself, I just
feel it doesn’t look ‘me’.
Q. What fuels you? Tea or coffee? (I had to
thro that in there!)
A. I drink a lot of water. A LOT. i do love
tea though, but it can distract me a bit too much if I need to get up a lot!
Green tea is my favourite, though I love chamomile and also floral based teas.
I’ve always wanted to try jasmine tea, sounds amazing!
Q. Most artists & creative’s hit a creative wall at some point & recently you shared on your blog that you recently had. How do you get out of them?
A. To be honest, I don’t feel I’m totally out
of it yet. I’m definitely getting there though, I’ve been making some patterns
here and there and doing some basic collages as well as a bit of drawing. I
think if someone commissioned something from me that’d really help, but I can’t
rely on that happening so I have to just get on and make for the love of it.
Sometimes to get out of it I just take a break for a couple days and try and
get inspired, but sometimes I just force myself to create things without any
pressure for it to be any good & that can really help. You don’t have to be
‘on’ all the time, and I think that makes a lot of people burn out.
Q. Where would you like Cardboard Cities to be this time next year, & how will you go about getting there?
A. Well, I’ve always said I’d LOVE to be in a
book at some point, though I don’t think that’d be happening within a year,
more a long term goal. To be honest, I’ve not really thought about any specific
things I want from myself and my work, and maybe that’s my problem at the
moment, I need focus. Something to work towards as well as creating just to
create. Saying that, I would love to maybe get some work in magazines, which
means working towards making my work fit within the editorial world more.
Generally though, in a year I would like to be able to afford to get proper
prints made, and things like fabric & stickers.
Q. Where can we find Cardboard Cities
products?
A. In my etsy shop you can buy originals,
handmade notebooks and cards: http://cardboardcities.etsy.com, & http://society6.com/cardboardcities
where you can buy other products such as prints, cushions & phone cases.
