Antique Photos, Anyone?

This morning I treated myself to a trip to Dick Blick since the BIGGEST SALE of the season is well under way. My favorite strata for any project is a gesso board and it was 50%OFF! I love pounding layers of paper into its surface with the help of any tool that's under 5lbs. in total weight. When it comes to canvas, even the 'Museum Profile' ones, I have to exercise restraint.... With gesso board I am free to seriously consider drilling holes in order to thread a wire through.

But with the project that's been on my mind for a while now, I'll have to re-enchant the softer side of my creative self. I want to venture into a collage that is themed on the early XX-ieth century B&W imagery. In fact, I fell in love with a tube of of Blick Artist's Acrylic Light Portrait Pink paint this morning and brought it home along with some other 'companions' in a Big shopping bag. I can see a 'match-made-in-heaven' between the aforementioned pink paint and Iridescent Silver for this new collage.

I also have been blessed with some very beautiful original photographs from the late 1930's thanks to my best friend Jola. Turns out that you can purchase these original antique photos for an equivalent of $2-$3 a piece in Europe at a monthly antique fair. Some of the photos must have been tore out of a photo album as they still hold remnants of a glued-on-backing.

And if this wasn't a cool enough treat, I've got four old B&W postcards hand-calligraphed on the back and dated August 28, 1912! It seems that someone was writing vacation greetings almost 100 years ago... and now I can hold it in my own hands.

Of course I will only use photocopies of those treasures in my collage...

Maybe in a hundred years from now someone will look at my silly vacation pictures never realizing how attached I was to them...

What are some of your most treasured art elements?