Collage uses all the found papers you can search out – tickets, coloured paper, printed paper, patterns, cards, sticker, tissue… anything you can stick onto a surface with glue. It works by selecting, placing and sticking down to make pictures or covers for scrap books, to cover boxes or even furniture.
You can make collage on your own, but it’s also a great to do it together in a group. The collage below was made with a primary school class group:
To make the collage above, the group chose an A4 sheet to put into the chequer board, and they were asked to find the centre of the sheet. The chequer board was made up and the group was asked to select collage bits. The group was told about pattern making, i.e. placing one in the centre or corners would create symmetry but also were able to post their papers wherever they wanted to.
The workshop leader was the only person who had glue, so the group were focused on posting their pieces into the composition. If each child had had their own glue brush, then the process could have become more about the glue than the collage!
It is possible to direct the collage activity by providing papers that you may have researched, look at Kurt Scwhitters work and you see he uses bus tickets, adverts and found papers.
You can see that children make their own choices of which colour, texture or design goes together.
These choices will be made just like an abstract artist might make theirs.
Collaged objects
You can make beautifully crafted boxes as gifts using an old tin or cardboard box:
To collage an object (see Decoupage) you can use watered down PVA to stick paper, undiluted for cloth, or sticky backed cut outs.
