From razor blades to the lasso tool

Back in the late ’70s I found a way to pass the time in high school math class: Cut up my own photos as well as pages from magazines with razor blades and tape or glue them into photo collages! Now, some of this was legitimate work and training: I entered some finished projects in the school art show, and others ended up in the yearbook (as well as the local newspaper a few years later to illustrate the features I wrote). I didn’t do so well in math though…

Here’s an example of a late ’70s razor blade work in progress, based on magazine clippings. You can see Bo Derek was popular at the time. I honestly don’t recall if I ever finished this one:

Here are a few finished razor blade collages on display at the art show in the gym, all using my original photos:

Here’s another razor blade collage used in our 1980 yearbook. The guy at lower left is my classmate, the late Chris Kreski of WWF fame. He also co-authored books with William Shatner and the Brady Bunch’s Barry Williams. I’m also in the collage a few times, though I didn’t write any books or work with any celebrities:

Here is an example of a razor-blade collage done for the local paper about 1983, to illustrate summertime fun:

As the early 1990s came along, the next logical step in doing this type of art was to use Photoshop. And that’s exactly how I first taught myself Photoshop, version 2.5 – you know, just before layers was offered in version 3! Yes, these particular collages were (somehow) done with no layers, making heavy use of the lasso tool to cut around objects:

In my previous post (“Time Sausages“) you can see what became the next step in my photo art development as the ’90s wore on, blending old and new photos together in Photoshop. But no more razor blades or lasso tools.

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