Creative Collage Combinations

Inspiration for Your Creative Collage Art

To wrap up this collage series, here are several more "experimental" examples demonstrating a combination of background texture with magazine collage or other found elements to produce interesting collage art effects.

Copyright Reminder: If you intend to create collage (or any other) art for other than personal, experimental purposes — create, photograph, or design your own original elements; or use items in the public domain so infringing on someone else's copyright will never be an issue.

Remember, anything you can glue down, paint over, or affix to your canvas support is fair game in collage. Don't be afraid to experiment. If it doesn't work out, that's okay, you can always try again. Let your imagination run wild and just enjoy yourself!

Part 6: Collage Combinations

Additional Materials:

• Open to a variety of papers, fabrics, and mediums, and techniques.

Collage #1: "Hands On"
This collage was constructed from origami paper, newspaper, and acrylic paint on a wood support. Real palm prints were added over the top by using two hands in a rubber stamping fashion: dipping them in paint and gently pressing down.

Collage #2: "Fishbowl Freedom"
This collage was made from torn magazine pieces, tissue paper, and acrylic paint on an illustration board support. Notice how the tissue paper is crumpled and painted into a background texture behind the lone fish outside of the fishbowl. It's always fun to create "new stories" into collage art from existing sources. The fish were originally part of an advertisement.

Collage #3: "Eye am be you tiful"
This self-affirming collage was made from tissue paper, torn magazine pieces, and acrylic paint on an illustration board support. It features a two-tier message ("I am beautiful", and "be you") that begins in the orange fish's eye and continues down toward the bottom under the other two fishes.

Collage #4: "Chocolate Pollock"
If Jackson Pollock could do it with paint, why can't we do it with chocolate! Actually, even though it looks real, the "chocolate syrup" on this collage is a chocolate-brown acrylic paint that looks amazingly realistic. Other elements include a colorful assortment of name brand chocolate-bar candy foil wrappers and a wood support spray-painted white.

The best thing about creating this collage was eating all of the chocolate beforehand. Well, how else were we going to get those wrappers?

Try it! Collage Tutorials Summary

We've covered some basic ideas and techniques for beginner collage artists: magazine collage, assemblage, and mixed media collage. We've also showed you examples of interesting collage background and texture effects, and how you can incorporate just about anything you wish into your personal, non-commercial works of art.

There is so much more to learn about collage and plenty of room for experimenting. If you want to seriously pursue the art of collage, we recommend that you do some further reading of articles and books by experienced collage artists who will give you good advice about creating collages that are durable and lasting.

Part seven includes a list of books and Web sites we found useful for putting together this series.