Cut & Paste Without The Waste!
This puzzle collage technique is a fun way to explore collage without the usual waste of paper. Optimally, students will need at least 4 layers of paper, including the upper drawing paper. If you use foil, I have found spray gluing it to drawing paper makes it far easier to work with. I do this and roll them with a printing brayer. Sometimes I let the foil wrinkle on purpose for texture. This is also a good opportunity to use op old cups of paint. Just brush old colors onto scrap paper or drawing paper so you have some painted paper textures to include. Variety makes this exploration stand out.
Then you need a subject. My video shows how to use the technique, but how you apply it is up to you. Any linear drawing can be turned into a collage, but complex drawings can be a problem. Younger students should limit their imagery to be rather simple, high school students can handle more complexity, but even there, I had a student do a dragon with individual scales. There were soooo many tiny pieces, he lost his way and became too frustrated too quickly. We simplified the image and had more success after. With complex images, it's better to cut one piece at a time and glue it to its background paper, or several papers if you want to do more than one version. This is especially helpful if the lesson will go on for several class meetings. Cutting and pasting as you go will be much easier though it can be slow going.
Possible subjects to use:
Still Life Linear Portraits
Simplified landscapes
Movie Poster
Story Illustration
Jabberwocky Poem Stanza Illustration (Or any poem really)
Abstract expressionism: where there is no subject: a cursive name can be re-done as a collage, or a wandering line can be used and cut along to make a nonobjective collage image; perhaps a line based on mood.
Then you need a subject. My video shows how to use the technique, but how you apply it is up to you. Any linear drawing can be turned into a collage, but complex drawings can be a problem. Younger students should limit their imagery to be rather simple, high school students can handle more complexity, but even there, I had a student do a dragon with individual scales. There were soooo many tiny pieces, he lost his way and became too frustrated too quickly. We simplified the image and had more success after. With complex images, it's better to cut one piece at a time and glue it to its background paper, or several papers if you want to do more than one version. This is especially helpful if the lesson will go on for several class meetings. Cutting and pasting as you go will be much easier though it can be slow going.
Possible subjects to use:
Still Life Linear Portraits
Simplified landscapes
Movie Poster
Story Illustration
Jabberwocky Poem Stanza Illustration (Or any poem really)
Abstract expressionism: where there is no subject: a cursive name can be re-done as a collage, or a wandering line can be used and cut along to make a nonobjective collage image; perhaps a line based on mood.
Video introduction to the technique.
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