Using Paper Collage To Piece Yourself Together
An Introspective DIY Project For Your Home
I recently enjoyed a morning of collage with Marina at Meraki, a small creative space and teaching studio in Hannover, Germany. What a relaxing and lovely time we shared cutting, pasting, and creating! I’ll share the results of our time together below and explain paper collage, what you need to do it, and how to use it to tap into yourself and, if you like, to create art for your home.
Photos: Meraki
A little background about my love for collage… I was once a big fan of scrapbooking in my 20’s when I lived in the United States which is kinda like art collage, isn’t it? I even sold scrapbooking supplies for a year while I was in art school, which helped me pay some of my tuition.
I’ve always journaled and created pretty pages with images in my journals since childhood using found papers, washi tape and stickers… I had books of stickers and other books filled with my favorite teen crush, all collaged from images sourced in magazines. And when I was a model scout in Boston for a big modeling agency, my office wall was covered collage-style with images of all of my favorite female models - from ceiling to floor. I remember spending a week to create that giant mood board.
I’ve been making interiors and fashion mood boards since childhood, and later in art school, I had to make many for projects and later, on the job and throughout my career since I began book writing and consulting on design projects.
Honestly, the art of making a mood board is not that far off from collage, so if you love to create mood boards whether digitally or with your hands, I’m willing to bet you’d find it equally nice to sit down before a table of things to cut and paste and create an art collage.
At once point in the late 90’s, I became obsessed with the Dadaist movement and traveled to NYC just to see this really impressive Dadaism exhibition at the MoMa which I saw again later in the mid 2000’s. I’ll never forget the images that stopped me in my tracks, the impressions they’d made on me, and how excited I was when I married a man from Germany who happened to be from the same city as one of the Dadaism greats, Kurt Schwitters.
In fact, some of Schwitters’ work, along with other artists from this movement, are in the permanent collection at the impressive Sprengel museum in Hannover where I frequently visit today (I’ve lived in Hannover for 13 years). I was even able to see a few more Dadaism exhibits here throughout the years.
For those of you not familiar with Dada, “The Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. The art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up writing, and sculpture. Dadaist artists expressed their discontent toward violence, war, and nationalism, and maintained political affinities with radical politics on the left-wing and far-left politics.”
There is a lot of meaning in the Dada works which is the same in the work of all collage artists today and those of us who dabble in it like me. One seeks to communicate a story from their composition, or to send a message, to express a viewpoint, to maybe tell a story that you fear to say with words. You may even seek to tell a very personal story, only obvious to you and not to the viewer - it can venture into the realm of “art therapy” for this reason if you so decide. You can go as deep as you like, or stay very shallow, or land somewhere in between. You can even make up a story, use your imagination, go wild!
Photo: Holly Becker
Meraki Studio in Hannover, Germany
Photo: (L) Holly Becker, (R) Meraki
My collages above, and Marina and I during the workshop.
Here are two pieces that I made at Meraki that I’m quite proud of. They are really the first pieces of collage work I’ve ever made in this size, normally my collage was much smaller or just inside the pages of a journal with no rhyme or reason. I don’t want to reveal the meaning behind them both - though the theme for one has to do with my life and career and the other is tied into being a mom, but that is as deep as I’ll reveal here.
Photos: Holly Becker
I framed my collages shown above and now they’re in my home - I’m so happy with the results and want to do more.
The beauty of a collage is that you can dive deep and add all sorts of little gems of meaning that are only for you - and I quite like the mystery of this, especially in a world where everything is so open and our lives are lived so publicly. Art collage allows you save some memories and details for yourself.
What do you need to make a paper collage to frame?
Next to nothing, I bet you already have everything listed below.
Supplies:
A4 paper (8,5 x 11” / or any size) that is thicker than standard copy paper
Scissors (smaller ones are excellent as well as standard size)
Magazines, newspapers (try finding vintage or paper in other languages), ticket stubs, book pages, vintage papers, copies of photos, vellum paper, decoupage paper (just not napkins), tissue paper, writing paper, washi tape (my favorite is from MT Tape)… Try to use materials that are thin and will lay flat.
Your color theme - try to use 3-5 colors if you can, or less. It’s harder to work with loads of colors. Use color that will work in your current decor if you plan to display it at home.
Your overall concept - What do you want to tell through your collage? What imagery can help you to tell your story? My collages took me about 90 minutes to make both because thinking of the concept and then gathering the images takes time. Relax, enjoy the process, let it be a calming and enjoyable few hours of your day.
Later on… a Frame and a nail or lean it against the wall on your cabinet.
Tips:
Experiment with layout and have fun!
Remember: don’t glue anything in place until you’ve moved it around the paper to locate the right spot for it.
You cannot glue vellum paper since you will see the glue through it even after it’s dried. Layer vellum instead in and around images that you can glue down, that way you can glue an image over part of the vellum piece to hold it in place.
Don’t try to be perfect or make a great piece the first time around. Practice and make as many as you have time for. Let this be a fun, creative exercise for you.
Keep your collages in a binder with sleeves if you’d rather not display them in your home. That way, they are protected by also, you can flip through them later on or share them with your family and friends.
Collage with your children, friends, or alone. Celebrate creativity and art!
Have a lovely day, I hope you feel encourage to get creative!
But first, do you make paper collages? Tell me more!!!!
Collage is my preferred art form since my 20's. I was prolific back then creating a whole series on the objectification of women ironically using model pictures from M. I've since done several 100 day projects using collage. What i wanted to add is that i may conceive a color way or theme but I truly don't have a message in mind when i start. I just show up and discover the collage's meaning as it's birthed. And yes, never glue it down until your certain of it's layout.
PS, you had us do collage mood boards for our new blogsites back in your blog course 12 years ago. Still blogging.
Much gratitude and collage joy,
Shalagh
I loved reading about your experience at Meraki studio and seeing your beautiful outcomes Holly. I really enjoy working with paper collage, particularly painting my own papers to combine with other imagery. I am working on a small series at the moment and you have inspired me to share some of my process.