To make a currency portrait, Wagner starts with a pencil sketch on paper based on source material before painstakingly assembling the collages, sometimes working with an assistant, in a process that takes between 30 and 40 hours to complete.

In the early days, Wagner gathered his art supplies by hoarding dollar bills after breaking a $20 at the deli, but he has learned to plan ahead, ordering a fresh stack of 1,000 dollar bills from the bank. New "crispy" bills work best, he said, because the color of old bills can become dingy from too much handling. Plus, fresh singles lack the pungent odor of a well-circulated bill.

New bills, he said, have the scent of "production, of the press room, so there's probably linseed oil and gum arabic and talc from the printing process." Used dollar bills, on the other hand, are redolent with "the stink of a gym locker, just from people handling it."

He said he sometimes puzzles out the design of a collage using photocopies of dollar bills so as not to throw money away on a rough draft.

To read the complete article, see:How Collage Artist Mark Wagner Makes Portraits From Dollar Bills(www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/01/14/collage_artist
_mark_wagner_currency_portraits.html)