An Introduction to Collage

Collage is from the French word “colle”, meaning, “to glue”. and is a form of visual arts, whereby assorted “found” objects are assembled to form a three dimensional artwork. “Found” objects are thus described because they exist to provide a function other than act as artistic decoration. An artistic collage work may include many things, the most common of which are newspaper, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, and photographs. Mixed media collage refers to the incorporation of distinct and traditionally separate visual art media like paint, textiles, beads, pieces of glass and so on.

Collage became a distinctive part of modern art by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and is often referred to as the art form of the 20th century.

I love to use non-traditional craft elements that remain acid and lignin free on my scrapbooking collage pages, but anything goes with cardmaking or making altered art. Size and weight of the material prohibits totally free reign, but I have included such diverse elements as pot pourri and moulding resin, and most elements from jewellery making, beading and assorted craft work.

Let me show you a couple of my most recent examples:

This male card involved direct to paper inking with fluid chalks, embossing, using metallic copper Stewart Gill embossing powder, the Montagerie clock cube stamp, and then some stuff that I had lying around. I layered some Tim Holtz alcohol ink over the vintage buttons and metal bits, to give the impression of age stains. Layers add to the visual weight. My "Joie de Vivre" stamp is part of the Tin Can Mail collection by Inkadinkado - both of these stamps were half price when I bought them - I love to think I am getting a bargain!

I used my Heidi Swapp daisy mask here, and with a stippling brush, laid over that different colours of Jo Sonja acrylic paint to form the background page - these paints are of a beautiful quality and rich in pigment. All the embellishments I've used were bits and bobs I've had laying around, including the felt, but by using my friend's Big Shot, I've cut loads of lovely daisy shapes in various colours. My friend Val recently sent me some large gold sequins, red beads, the glass mosaic tiles and the small gold beads, and I've used an assortment of them all here. I've added some foam shapes that have been lying around in my button tin for years - these are now very fashionable, being that American Crafts have just brought out a new range of embellishments in various mediums such as felt, chipboard and plastic. I get a great deal of satisfaction of using bits of "junk" in an up-to-date way and making a cohesive art piece that just "gels" for me - eventually. Probably not collage in the strictest sense of the word, but I've incorporated mixed media and lots of layers - so who is going to argue the point?