Collage: How To Use It In Your Scrapbooks

Wow, you say. What has Rockester come up with this month? This looks new! This is called collage and you can do it too! You may be saying "I thought collage was for art museums!" or asking, "How can I use collage in my albums? How do I plan what to use on a page and what to leave out? Do I need a theme? How do I know when to stop the composition?" Follow along and soon you will be creating great collage pages too! This technique is great because you can use so many odds and ends photos and supplies with it!

Most scrapbookers don't consider themselves bona fide art museum artists. But if you have layered objects on a background, you have the fundamentals of collage. Collage is a true twentieth century (and now twenty-first century) art form. Even though it is a world-wide form of expression it is fairly recent as a recognized 'art' form. "Collage has only been identified and defined during the twentieth century." according to the National Collage Institute in Hudson,
Ohio. Collage is layering objects, mostly found objects, in an artwork to evoke a mood or message to the viewer. Karen Hale paper collage artist says, "collage, a kind of surrealist art in which bits of flat objects, as newspaper, cloth, pressed flowers, etc., are pasted together in incongruous relationship for their symbolic or suggestive effect." --Sounds like scrapbooking to me!

Still not sure what collage is? Take a look or here at a site called DragonHome for some great samples: It is a very inspiring site! To get a closer look at any DragonHome image collage, just click on it. Of course, hit the BACK button to get back here for the rest of my article! :)

Decide how realistic you want the mood of your collage album page to be. Do you want it to be random, wild, and funky and just hint at a theme? This is called non-representational collage. This type of collage generally has many unrelated images and memorabilia embedded into it and they may not all be related strictly by theme.

Or do you prefer the more realistic thematic page where the focal point (your photo) is obvious and the collage is unified to the focal point? This second type of collage is called Impressionistic collage. Most scrapbookers use this second type (or Impressionistic collage) when doing photo album pages. (figure 1 and 2) Start with Impressionistic collage if you are a beginner at collage. Here is how I start a collage page.

Step One: Choose Your Photo or Photos
Grab some duplicates or extra photos for this technique. If you have a certain photo you want to highlight, that is great. If you have a grab bag of odds and end photos, we can start with one of them. Limit yourself and use only between one and 3 photos. We are going to be adding a lot of other fun stuff to the page. So it is best decide now if you want the photo to really stand out (just choose one as in figure 2) or if you want the photos to be part of the greater "general" mood effect of the page (working with more than one photo as in figure 1). Pick photos that you don't mind manipulating a bit. You want a photo that you can tear the corners off of, layer other elements on the sides, or sprinkle with a little glitter on and not feel that you have ruined a photo. (See figure 3)

Step Two: Relax
The collage technique is playful and experimental --so pick a picture you don't feel will be 'ruined' by collaging it. This is meant to be a fun exercise so loosen up and relax. Be playful. Remember in art, there is no right or wrong way for your page to turn out. Invite a friend over to bounce ideas off of. You don't have to plan everything out to the tee. Enjoy the process.

Step Three: Create a Background
Choose your album background size and paper. White, black, or tan are great neutral solid backgrounds for a collage page. (See figure 2) I start with solids because I am adding so many other elements to the collage. The background is really just the 'base' that the rest gets glued onto. You can set aside a few patterned papers to use later in smaller bits if they tie in with your color scheme or theme. But right now we want a solid for the background. I sometimes use a brayer and some ink to add a little color to the background or a new ink/acid free paint called Radiant Pearls to stipple a little glimmer here and there on the solid color background. Not much of the background shows by the time we are done layering but you may want a little extra dimension there anyway for the parts that do show.

Step Four: Think like a Crazy Quilt and Gather Up Stuff
What kind of elements "go" with your photo? Keep the mood of the photo in mind as you choose elements to layer on the page. Gather up supplies that go with your theme, colors, or photo. Collages can be done in color or in black and white. You decide! Look in your stash of supplies and leftovers. Here are some choices: vellum, twine, glossy magazine page pictures, poems, quotes, rubber stamped images, torn paper, hand drawn elements in black pen, raffia, origami folding, mulberry papers, dried pressed flowers, stickers, inks, clip art, chalks, and scrap paper bits. As long as the elements make sense to you and set a mood, use them.

Step Four and a Half: Relax Again. :)

Step Five: Place your photo.
Let's place the main photo first. If you made a black and white copy you can work with that at this point also. (See figure 2) Now tear off a corner on a side that needed cropping anyway. Or tear all the way around border of the photo. And crumple a bit on another corner if you are brave! This adds to the aged look of the photo if it is an older photo and also adds a modern urban grunge look if it is a newer photo. Don't give up yet. Relax. This is a photo you want to play with. Place the photo slightly left of center on your background paper.

If using more than one photo, place them randomly around the page after tearing or crumpling at least one corner on each photo. I used one main photo of the three girls and then used three more focal points. A focal point can be a larger element and can be a photo or another object. Here you see dried lilacs, a Tigger picture, and a nail polish picture. These may seem like random elements but do all tie into the 'theme' of the three friends.

Step Five and a Half: Relax Once More :)

Step Six: Add Layer after Layer
Look at your stash of elements and their possibilities. Work from larger objects first on down to smaller objects last. Use a repositionable adhesive. Tilt the elements slightly or even place them upside down on the page. Let some of the items hang over the edge a bit --you will trim them up later. Collage is creative and you do NOT have to be symmetrical or orderly. In fact it is better if you are not! Let some objects overlap others slightly but not completely. And don't forget wording! Poems or quotes or other handwriting gives not only a message but a mood. Layer, layer, layer. Keep going until you feel you are done. This is your page. You decide what goes on it.

Step Seven: Adhesive and Trim
When you think you like the setup of your collage, go ahead and glue it with a more permanent adhesive. Don't revise it too much at this point. The temptation is there to start straightening things--don't! You basically just want to make sure you can see all the elements and have not covered anything up completely that you meant to have showing. Trim any elements that hang over the edge of the background paper. That's it! You are done! And the fun thing is that no two collages look the same --even when you use the same photo!

Wahlah! Get out the French beret cap and champagne! You are an collage artiste! For more collage links and inspiration check out
Collage Art Links