MORE COLLAGE APPROACHES

Mosaic Approach
This way of making a collage is similar to creating a mosaic, because the spaces between the cut out shapes are left to show, as with this white backgraound. I used a fashion photo, for demonstration purposes, only. First I cut lines through the basic image, to accentuate the major movements of the figure. The original torn shape where the page was taken out of the magazine, was also accentuated as part of the design. Eventually, I extended lines outside the original page or image, and created shapes within the image by cutting shapes out of the color, as well as adding shapes to complement the composition. I added a moon in the upper corner. The middle circle is replaced on the girl's shoulder, but is up-side-down. The magazine image the girl is looking at, became the source of the eye pasted in place of her real eye. It is important to change an image from a magazine so that it is not the same as the original. I would have credited the magazine and the photographer, but the information was no longer available, but still, I probably won't use the girl for finished work.


An Eye for Design
As a creator of Collage, it is also important to see opportunities for creating images that are new and different. The next image started when I was trimming some edges off some photos and articles about family and neighbors saved in a scrapbook, that I planned to send to a cousin. I had marked the pages with sticky notes to make it easier to copy them, so the sticky notes also were copied at the copy edges. As I cut them off, I was delighted with the design they created in black and white. So I saved them for a possible collage.

Since I wanted to show some examples of types of compositions, I made scans of these arrangements of sticky notes. I also made a grid arrangement of four inch squares which were used horizontally and vertically in the same format. These are not finished compositions; just illustrations  of different approaches you might want to try with Collage.

I chose to reverse the image of the girl, and also to change the color to black and white to blend with the Sticky Notes layouts, in black and white.

In the final option, I placed the fashionista layout over one version of a Sticky Notes layout. I found it humorous to include the two images together, as I could imagine the girl marking her fashion magazine with sticky notes. The mosaic effect was altered with the skipped black and white lines of the background chosen. If color over color was used, probably the result would create an even different impression.

I am not sure any of these are finished. I will need to look at them after a time lapse to see what else I would like to do with them.

Comments or Questions are welcomed. Thanks, Ruth Zachary.

Writing and Sticky Notes images are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.