“The word ‘collage’ comes from the French word “coller” which means to stick together or to glue.”
What is collage art in simple words?
Collage is an art-making technique where pieces of paper, pictures, and other things are arranged and stuck down onto a surface. It often includes magazine and newspaper clippings (though I generally like to use only content I have created), photographs, ribbons, paint, bits of colored or handmade papers, portions of other artwork or texts, and other found items.
I have always loved creating collage art. Enjoying the extra dimension of layers of added paper or other materials.
This small piece was created some months ago. I started by ripping pieces from a landscape texture sheet in one of my sketchbooks, shaping as I tore, to use as the broad areas of the apple shape. Then I added paint splatters and a light was in the background. The black ink lines were added in Procreate 5 on my 12.9” iPad Pro.
I am currently working on publishing a book of my Apple artwork. I have 25-30 Apple art works at present.
Do you incorporate collage into your art? If so, please post a link to your work in the comment section.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” ~ Desmond Tutu
Some followers may know that I have been battling with debilitating osteo Arthritis for several years which has thrown a spanner into my art practice. On those days when I cannot work with analogue materials, I often draw on my iPad. This Daily Drawing is part of a recent series of posts showing work that was created in the Apple Notes App (essentially a writing app) using just the basic drawing tools offered within the text-based app. The basic art is sometimes imported into Procreate 5 on my 12.9” iPad Pro and enhanced.
Over the past year or so I have experimented with simple drawings made with these rudimentary drawing tools iPad Pro using a second-generation Apple Pencil as my sketching pencil, ink pen and paint brush. This exercise has beenan effort to show that all the bells and whistles contained in dedicated paint applications are not always needed to create something interesting where there was nothing before. This piece is one of a number of works created for use as a greeting card series (paired up with some of my poetry verse as the inside message.)
If you try this experiment, sketching in the Notes app with its in-app tools, please post a link to your work in the comment section.
“We forget that water and life cycles are one.” Jacques Cousteau. Oceanographer
Daily drawing created in the Apple Notes App using just the basic drawing tools offered within the text-based app. The basic art was then imported into Procreate 5 on a 12.9” iPad Pro and enhanced. I find this method fabulous for brainstorming and coming up with concepts for future analogue or digital works. Many make it into the manuscripts of stories that I write. Some of the imagery inspires a written piece—a story, a poem or a concept.
In this art I see breaking waves with white splashy foam rising up with the surf. As I continued to look at this piece, a sense of magnetospheric catastrophe emerged, perhaps with a geomagnetic shifting of the north and south poles, essentially wiping out much of earth’s living organisms, including humans. It‘s interesting how art can elicit a wide range of thoughts, reactions and conjectures, which are, after all, fodder for creative artists and writers.
“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” ~ Jonathan Swift
Another of my daily scribbles using the simple drawing tools offered in the Apple Notes app. Edited in Procreate on my 12.9” iPad Pro. I dubbed this drawing “Sightlines“ to represent the volumes of information that we are taking in and processing every day. This is a particularly virulent time history, politically, environmentally and technologically. Trying to keep up with the latest news while dealing with the vagaries of life can be overwhelming. We artists and writers generally internalize the environment around us and these events can appear in our work—often unconsciously. How do current events affect your work?
The chronic arthritis in my shoulders complicates the making of traditional analog art. On days when it is particularly problematic, I often draw on my iPad Pro in apps such as Procreate, Adobe Fresco and other dedicated painting apps. Lately, however, I have been enjoying the simplicity of the Apple Notes app drawing tools as a vehicle for creativity. I generally use the Apple Pencil for navigating around the tablet to cause less stress on my hands. In this drawing I primarily used the Notes app pencil and crayon tools. If you are dealing with arthritis or another challenge, what are some ways that you continue to be able do your creative work? Would love to hear from you in the comments.
“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” ~ Paul Klee
The chronic arthritis in my arms and hands can complicate the making of art. On days when it is particularly problematic, I often draw on my iPad Pro in apps such as Procreate, Adobe Fresco and other dedicated painting apps. Lately, however, I have been enjoying the simplicity of the Apple Notes app drawing tools as a vehicle for creativity. I generally use the Apple Pencil for navigating around the tablet to cause less stress on my hands. If the sleeping iPad screen is awakened with an Apple Pencil, it will open Apple Notes with a drawing page open with the tools available (I also open a Quick Note by using a gesture from the bottom right into the centre. See more info here). In this drawing I primarily used the watercolour and ink pen brushes. Give it a try and post a link to your drawing in the comments.
“I think in circles; I speak in circles. I unravel my thoughts that way.” ~ Nathan Englander, Author
I am a creative writer as well as a painter/illustrator. Sometimes an idea for a story comes from a sketch, sometimes it’s the other way around, an idea for a sketch comes from a written passage. This is what I jotted down after creating the combination analogue watercolour and digital illustration:
“The green sphere raced through the atmosphere, flying in the wind through the cosmos, hurdling towards a who-knew-where destination. Arriving on an ordinary day in the imaginative life of the artist-writer, the work had only been in existence since the day before when It flowed off the pen of the ‘creator’. A character is tasked with unravelling the ‘squiggles’ to reveal what, if anything, is concealed by the quagmire. The painting’s occupant wondered aloud “who the hell does she think she is, anyway? Building worlds and creating inhabitants only to abandon them to the whims of time, wallowing in the ‘legions of forgotten ideas’. We deserve to know what happens to us! Finish the story, dammit!.”
What I like about writing is getting lost in these worlds of imagination. Who would have thought that a little squiggle drawing could spawn creatures with human-like abilities? These stories stretch the concepts of reality. Creating something in another dimension or space. The human brain is a miraculous thing. It can take us to the moon and back, as well as to the outer regions of the universe, in our stories. They can even take us inside a little scribble drawing, with a scribble hero who wants to free the world from its network of confining scribbled lines. I wonder if, at the end of it all, the hero finds out that the scribbled lines are all that there is, and that in trying to free the world, he or she actually destroys it.
“The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less.” ~ Arthur Miller, American Playwright
It has been a long, frustrating period for my creative practice. Chronic pain in my right hand, wrist and shoulder have been a challenge. After performing the regular tasks of living, there is often little dexterity left to make art.
That being said, after a lengthy sojourn away from daily sketching, I am back trying to re-establish this daily habit. Right now it’s in a tiny 3.5” x 4.5” notebook beside my bed where I scribble something in each day. I try for morning but sometimes the deed gets done in the evening. This is a small coloured pencil drawing of an imagined apple to add to my large collection of apple art. Do any of you have a daily creative practice? How do you motivate yourself?
“Every great artist has a closet full of bad paintings” ~David Young
As the saying implies, every seasoned artist has a closet-full of also-ran works, partially-finished paintings (I have a TON of these) and various sketches, splatters, colour studies, etc. to draw on for inspiration. Years ago I signed up for a creative play course at a local art school. At that time I was operating a busy design and advertising studio and had been pounding it hard for months, even years, deciding I needed to have some fun to recapture my spontaneous creativity. During that time I started making collages out of some of the painted works I made in class. Ripping them up, adding to them with fresh paint marks and splashes—even some snippets from my creative writing journals—resulting in a couple of my all-time favourite pieces (will post them another time).
Now, some 20 years later, with arthritis plaguing my hands and arms, back problems and one ‘iffy’ foot, large works are a challenge. Historically, I worked on many pieces at a time, propping them up in my studio so I could ponder them as I walked by, making a mark here or there. At times scrubbing out an entire area. Now, I only do one or two larger pieces at the same time, with the rest of my time spent on smaller works to satisfy the necessity to create something—anything.
A couple years ago I started a daily drawing/painting habit that satisfied the creative urge. Last winter, till this day, I have parlayed that into collage work. I generally do not use magazine or other printed materials (tho I won’t rule out anything in future) but rather use my own failed (in my estimation) or damaged paintings as fodder to make something new. The ULTIMATE RECYCLING activity for creating ART. See more Art Recycling ideas here. I like the ecological aspects of repurposing material that may add to the landfill for new creative art.
Pictured here are two pieces that are on my college table at present. They are still at the placing element design stage. Gluing only happens when I’m happy with an area. I walk by and shift or add a piece of paper, a dried leaf, a piece of thin fabric or paint a brushstroke here and there till my mind yells “STOP” and I call it finished. These two have been hanging about since Spring and I’m just getting back to working on them. Each started with paint on paper, discarded works, pieces of larger works. The theme is nature clothed in its many landscape and seascape outfits.
Famous artists who worked in collage include: Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höck, et al. Link.
Post a comment.
Do YOU enjoy working in collage? What are your challenges or pre-conceived notions about collage as an art form?
Trisha’s Daily Painting 