On Saturday, May 12, which coincidentally was World Collage Day, I offered a three-hour collage workshop at the Harlow.
my demo pieces
The Tao of Collage starts with the One.
The One: Take one sheet of black paper and make one cut. Arrange the paper, both positive and negative, on a white 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of cardstock. See the bird’s beak collage, above? That is my demo for the “one.”
our work space at the Harlow
The Three: Take a small piece of black paper. Make Three cuts into the black paper. You may cut or tear your shapes. Arrange the shapes on the larger white background paper into a relationship. (My demo piece is only partially visible, below.)
Robin’s other demo piece with the “Three” partially visible on the right side
The Five: Make five cuts into the paper. Arrange the shapes on a white paper to activate the space. When you are ready, glue them down.
There are many possible variations of my “Tao of Collage” exercises. You can make one up and share it with me in the comments, below!
We had fun playing with cutting and arranging these little compositions.
student work from the April 12th workshop at the Harlow
What is delightful about the Tao ofCollage Exercises is that they help us bypass the inner critic, stay away from complexity, and “just make something.” By allowing my adult students to play, they were better able to enter into the creative zone with collage and forget themselves for a little while. Isn’t that the whole point of taking time out to do art?
World Collage Day poster, courtesy of Kolaj Magazine