As an art form collage is quite incredible in its flexibility. A collage work can never really be ruined as there is always an inherent possibility of recovery. This could be through removing whole sections, pasting over sections, painting over sections etc…

As an example, I once had a larger work (slightly more than A2) which had a skyline I didn’t feel was working. Five minutes later it had been cut out and a new sheet added behind. If the new sheet hadn’t have worked it would be a matter of cutting it out also or, if the original skyline had looked better, simply taping it back together behind.

Collage can be an inventive method of recycling. Pulling waste out of recycling bins rubbish skips, paper baskets, taking old magazines destined for the tip, old cans, wire, string, wool, newspapers, lolly wrappers…the list of potential materials is endless, limited only by your imagination.

The list of techniques and methods are also seemingly limitless with resulting works which can be incredibly simple, extremely complex, photo real or abstract, in your drawing style or as a composite image…the list goes on.

Before we start looking at the methods we need to consider what collage is, what tools we will need and what to look for in our materials (specifically colour and texture).



A DEFINITION, WHAT IS COLLAGE?:


The following definition for collage can be found on Wikipedia ([link]) and is as follows:

“A collage (From the French: coller, to glue) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole…

An artistic collage work may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs, and such, glued to a piece of paper or canvas.

Techniques of collage were first used at the time of the invention of paper in China around 200 BC. The use of collage, however, remained very limited until the 10th century in Japan, when calligraphers began to apply glued paper, using texts on surfaces, when writing their poems.[1]

The term collage derives from the French "coller" meaning "glue".[2] This term was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.”


TOOLS:

As to tools, the following is a list of items I keep at hand:

Dry glue (glue stick)
Wet glue (PVA, hot glue, super glue)
Large scissors
Nail scissors
Stanley knife
Scalpel
Blue tack (for testing composition)
(Depending on how smooth or how photo real you want the finish it can be very time consuming. Much of the time is spent matching colours or texture, so it is handy to have folders or boxes set aside for collecting textures and colours in. Labeling the folders or boxes, makes it easier than sifting through a hundred magazines.)


MATERIALS:

Materials can be old magazines, newspapers, boxes, packaging, fabric, metals, stone…anything which is of interest should be collected for future use.

Different papers have different surface qualities and colour intensity and sometimes even carry a significance of their own through cultural association. In my opinion the best bet is to collect material which looks useful or which interests you as it comes to hand, saving it for future use. Good sources for papers I have found are scientific magazines (for colour, paper quality and interesting images), Cleo and Cosmo (or similar magazines, both for colour and paper quality) and craft stores (who stock different kinds of paper in a variety of colours)to name but a few.

This is of course just a very small number of possible sources, but they are a good starting point for reasons of quality and cost effectiveness (most of us have younger sisters or cousins with old magazines to spare!)

Collage has come to cover a vast array of different methods and for many works colour and texture are not important considerations. For the sake of sanity however, and in order to provide a beginning point I will cover colour and texture first.

Once you have an image in mind you need to consider how you will fill it. Some considerations might be do you want an area of flat colour? Do you want subtle tonal shifts to imbue an area with more energy? How smooth do you want colour transitions to be? Does the material carry significance? E.g., if the piece is anti war in content is a newspaper clipping on gardening the best to use as background, or would an piece related to war be more appropriate. (of course, the article on gardening could be making just as powerful a point) Do you want to do a monochromatic work? Do you even need colour in the first place?

It is a common misconception that collage is by neccessity quite simple, with little variation being possible. For this reason I have provided some samples (from card, cardboard and magazines)to give some idea of the range of colour variability, which can be an important consideration when creating a work.






In this second sample sheet I included at the top coloured scraps which also feature pictoral texture, followed underneath by colours taken out of original context (these were skin tones from a magazine advert, which make very nice, subtle reds) followed at the bottom of the sheet by some scraps cut from tissue boxes and other packaging.

Some samples of violets...





Some samples of blue...





As you can see from this very small sample, there is a lot of options in terms of hue, as well as intensity. One major problem however when using found material is that you may actually run out of paper before you have filled the intended area. This becomes less of a problem when buying papers, as they come in large ammounts and more can be purchased if needed.

If you were looking for an intense colour area and have limited supplies of any given colour or tone then it is possible to blend colours of similar tone and hue by pasting layers of paper down on top of each other.


E.g.








As you can see in this sample I have laid down the larger sheets of the blue I had wanted to fill the area, using smaller pieces of similar blues pasted over the top to blend tonal differences together.

An example of a finished work where I used the same technique would be,



As most of you would be aware, tearing coloured paper leaves a white edge (unless you are very cunning and tear so that the white appears underneath). While this can be very effective in some cases in this instance, in order to get a smooth colour transition, I trimmed the white edges with a small pair of nail scissors.

For this kind of work I use a dry glue, in the form of a glue stick. These have a number of advantages. They are not messy, they dry clear, the paper dries flat over the top and they do not trickle out from underneath unbeknownst to you and leave solid lines of glue all over the work.

There are of course other ways to fill areas, ie. painting in areas of colour, colouring your own paper or generally being less pedantic about the overall outcome than I have been in this example. Much collage derives its charm in fact from its haphazard appearance, but, for the perfectionists among you, I have given this as an example. I think this is a handy method to remember as it is a means of freeing you from the constraints of limited paper supplies.

Another option, if you have a particular colour which you wish to use large ammounts of but of which you can find but a limited supply, is to have the colour photo copied by a professional office printing company. "Office works" here in Australia do top quality photo copying (with the copy often being indistinguishable from the original) for a very low cost. I believe an A3 sheet costs less than two dollars. This is also an interesting option as the copies, depending on where you go, can be done with archival papers and inks, with a guaranteed lifetime of a number of decades if not longer. Something to ponder if you are concerned with the life expectancy of your work.

To give some illustrative examples of how effective colour can be in a collage work, here are some examples from around DA.

















Along with colour comes texture. The two often come hand in hand when finding papers, as different surfaces have different qualities. A high gloss magazine will have a very different look and feel to an underground zine or a newspaper. When looking at texture you have to consider both surface quality as well as pictoral texture (the texture created by the colours on the paper). It is important to remember that when looking for a particular pictoral texture, say for example wooden panneling, it is not always neccessary to find an image of wood. A woman in a shampoo advert may have hair which, when cut and rearranged looks just as good if not better!


Below are some examples of pictoral texture,





Pictoral texture can be used to create whole composite works with pieces of images becoming pieces of another image through redirection and rearrangment. This is something I will cover at another time when dealing with composite images (works made form rearranging previous imagery)


Below is an example of rearranged texture, with the original image being roof thatching in an island nation...although it still has a "grassy" feel it no longer comes across as a thatched roof, and could be used to stand in for a number of different things. This gives you a rough idea of how pictoral texture can be taken out of its original context to be used elsewhere.



It must be noted that pictoral texture can be created by hand through use of paint or other traditional media, or through effects such as frottage ([link]) or decalcomania ([link]) as in the following example of a work where I rearranged paper textured through the decal process...





Of course, surface texture on the other hand is very difficult to illustrate over the internet, but holding a tissue in one hand and a pizza box (or piece of slate...or in fact anything that isn't a tissue)in the other gives you an idea of just how different surfaces can be. Materials like silk, lace, stone, wood, plaster as well as all kinds of metals can be used in a work, each with different effect.

The best way to see how different articles work together is through experimentation but it is a good idea to consider why you want to use a certain material or what materials would best suit the mood/theme of your work. Certain materials carry a significance of their own which can add weight to an image. Sheets of metal speak very differently to an audience than sheets of paper.

Here are some examples of work which incorporate texture effectively made by some talented deviants from around DA...


















This is about all I have time for for now. Once you have started looking for and collecting materials you will find they spark ideas on their own. Particular colours or papers inspire different thoughts or ideas, which are worth jotting down. The next step of course is to start looking at pulling images together using different methods, which I shall try to cover next time!

Take care!