Creating Collages

CREATING COLLAGES

Across the years I seem to have left a trail of creation in my wake. Especially during my early teenage years, I would divulge my creative ideas and urges into a multitude of projects that were often left unfinished, incomplete, intended to be revisited at a later date. There's notebooks semi filled with poems, songs, doodles, neglected drawings. The realms of creative stimuli that I constantly stick to the wall of any bedroom I've inhabited. Three journals packed full of teenage diary confessions, drawings, random bits and bobs stuck in as mementoes, things that inspired me, that chronicle my final years of school, and which I actually finished too. There's wallets full of photographs I printed. A4 and A3 sketchbooks full of watercolour drawings. Collections of postcards which I used to obsessively buy from Paperchase for 60p a go. Two small notebooks filled with illustrations. Photo journals that I started but forgot to finish. My college artwork shoved under the bed. Notebooks crammed with ideas and brainwaves. Everything begun with intent, only some of it persisting and reaching completion, fruition. 

One of my favourites things of mine though, something that I've started and am yet to finish, is my collage book. Bought in a Paperchase sale many a year ago, this flower adorned book filled with 80 pages of crisp white card and wrapped with a royal blue ribbon, is what I bought in a time of need. You see, a few years ago I randomly started cutting out the pretty pictures I saw in the Sunday magazines, or those free magazines you can pick up when out and about in the city. I'd see all this imagery that inspired me, and to leave it permanently embedded in that page, only to be thrown in the recycling bin, lost forever more, started to seem wrong. I wanted to keep these pretty images that had inspired me in some way, appealed to my aesthetic eye, and use them for something. As you can imagine, a lot of imagery fell into that category, so my collection of cuttings began to build and build. I kept the images dotted around my bedroom, and then that wasn't enough, so I had to start filling big envelopes with all the images. Some images made it to the bedroom wall or my journals, but the majority was left with a mental note to use at a later date. Buying that special notebook was me finally giving myself a creative outlet that I didn't yet have. A space to use these images, assemble them together, keep them safe and preserved, be a little bit creative, make a book that meant something to me.

To date, I've probably filled about 22 pages, and as you can guess, I still have a lot of images left waiting to be used. And I'm getting there, bit by bit. Only this weekend gone I cut out a load of images and put them in the envelope for future use. I always seem to forget about the book, and then I rediscover it and all those pictures, and I'm overcome with the desire to create again. It's very soothing, is collaging. So for this post I wanted to show you some of those collages, filled with an assortment of random pictures, and urge you to have a go at collaging yourself. It's so much fun, it's such a calming process, cutting things out and then putting them back together again in a new and innovative way. Taking what was, seeing what could be, and then putting that vision together, seeing things come together in a different way. I love it. Whether your four years old, nineteen like me, late twenties, mid thirties etc., collaging is perfect for everyone. You don't have to be particularly creative, it's all about picking out images that mean something to you, and putting them down somewhere to inspire you later, however you please. Taking time out to relax, create, indulge in your interests. Anyone can do it, and it's strange because it reveals a lot about the kind of person you are too. What subject matters interest you, what qualities in a picture attract you most and draw you in, the way you assemble the pictures afterwards, the way you cut out the pictures. It's great, I love it, and the best thing is it's super easy, and here's how to do it....

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HOW TO DO IT

You will need: scissors, something sticky (glue, tape, blu tack), things to cut out (free magazines in the paper, in shops, print out pictures from the internet, photographs, coloured paper, your own drawings or writing), something to put your cut outs into (eg. an envelope), somewhere to stick your cut outs 

1) Look through your resources and cut out words, comments, pictures, drawings etc. that inspire you in some way, or catch your eye. Likewise just keep an eye for things that inspire you in general, even if you aren't planning on collaging, and keep them for a later date.

2) Put them into a pile and then sift through and pick out images that you like and want to group together. It might be they have similar colours, subject matters, have a similar look about them or common theme, or they might just be completely random.

3) Play about with them on the page, deciding how you want to arrange them. You might do it very simple, minimal and clean cut, or you might start overlapping images, piecing them together in an intriguing and innovative manner. You might fill the page or fill part of the page.

4) When you've decided on where you want to put the pictures, stick them down.

5) Add extra patterns, words, details if you please, using pens, stickers, felt tips... 

6) Marvel at how awesome you are, then repeat, and you may want to Instagram a few pics along the way :)

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MY COLLAGES