Collage the Heck out of it!

What does it mean to me?

I discovered my love for collaging back in high school. Throughout my childhood, I grew up seeing my aunt attend different art classes and do various forms of arts and crafts. She did everything from scrap booking to flower arranging. All I could remember while watching her was how jealous I was to see her doing everything. I wanted so badly to explore my artistic side too. She was very hands-on and interactive in her art, and that’s exactly what I wanted to experience. As for collaging, I think the thing that drew me the most to it was the physical aspect of seeing, touching, and feeling art at the tips of my fingers. The extravagant and infinite number of different types of patterns, textures, shapes, colors and pictures are like candy to my eyes. There’s a glint of excitement that shoots through me when I finally get the right two pieces together.

I’m sure you’re wondering how dumb it might be talking about collaging but, like any other kind of hobby, it’s a medium used for self-expression. For some it comes out through sports, work, writing, or academics. For me, I discovered it was through the art of collaging. Yet, only to a certain extent. I find other outlets, like music helpful in communicating the non-visual aspect of a person, like one’s emotions and feelings. But on the other hand, collage art communicates visual messages.

Throughout my life, I grew watching America’s Next Top Model, Project Run Way, and Korean dramas (which I would argue have very well-dressed actors and actresses). All in which have contributed to where I get my inspiration from. Since I, myself, have not learned the art of sewing and measuring, I decided to use collaging as a way to express the ideas in my head. In a broad sense, I’d like to describe collages a result of putting together both, my passion for art and fashion.

How do I make them?

I believe that there are no rules when it comes to making collages. The only thing that a collage needs is for you to stay true to yourself and to HAVE FUN. Let me emphasize that this a form of self-expression not “who can make the best art in the whole entire world” kind of thing. Whenever I try to make anything artsy I find it extremely hard when I have a competitive mindset. I learned that it’s important to put aside the competition and pressure of trying to be the most creative or different, and understand that we are all unique and different human beings. And only if we could continue to stay true to ourselves then the art itself will be “creatively” made. You’d be surprise what you can make when you just let yourself go and have fun.

On a serious note, to start off a collage, you have to make sure you have the essential supplies: glue (preferably tacky glue because it doesn’t cause any wrinkles when the collage dries), scissors, paper/canvas, and scraps. I use magazines and whatever I find lying around the house.

I normally like to have one main item in the middle of my paper with a background. Although, you can make a collage without one. There isn’t necessarily a theme made until the center piece is decided and, or later on during the process.

For this collage piece, I decided to place mine on a black construction paper and used words as my background. I figured most things would look good with white and black. To give the piece more dynamic and texture, I ripped the edges off to make it look rugged and not so clean-cut.

Afterwards, I made my center piece. It might be hard to decipher which is the center piece but, originally, it was meant to be woman with the fancy white/floral dress. I wanted a spring and summer feel, and I felt that the floral concept would be a perfect fit. To make her stand out the most, I cut up small pieces of white plastic bag for her top, and glued only in the middle of each piece so that the ends would flare. This would also cause more added volume. Then I cut long skinny triangles from a plain white and floral-patterned magazine page for the bottom of her dress. I glued one corder of each triangle piece Not only did I take extra time to make the dress stand out but it made my collage look 3D.

For all the extra parts, I flipped through my numerous vogue magazines (the only subscription I have) to fill in the spaces. I added more people into my piece to give it more life. I made sure to add something to each face that was posted on my canvas. For example, the red-haired girl, I added red roses for her earrings, a peach rose for her head piece, and gold-yellow flowers on her shoulder to accentuate her features. Once I added her onto my page, she brightened up the collage by making it look bold and elegant. I always say, the piece is only what you make of it. So, if you want it soft and muted then make it soft and muted with certain colors, decorations, and accessories that you choose.

Lastly, I like to add words and “confetti” on my collage. Words can help pose an underlying message while some confetti, like the flower petals, are extra fillers to create balance on the page. The word I spelt was “revive”. I made sure each letter was spelt with different fonts because I wanted it to catch the audience’s eye. I associated revive with the blooming flowers; bold, vibrant colors; and uniqueness of oneself (as expressed in having each letter a different font). As I enter into this new adventure and season in life with experimenting with more things and reigniting new and old ideas, I hope that you can also revive and find something that you can all be passionate about too.

Implications and realizations in relation to life

But as I began to collage, it came to my realization that collaging is very much like life. You don’t know how the final piece will look like, but you have faith and hope that it will turn out good. It might be a difficult process because sometimes you don’t know how or where the different pieces will fit. However, you do know that there will be some sort of masterpiece in the end. One that is different. One that is unique. A masterpiece that fits you.

Kassandra