CREATE A PLAYFUL COLLAGE LANDSCAPE
I have always loved working with paper collages. Some of the paper I use I have either hand textured & painted or taken from my collection of old maps, manuscripts, paper bags, stamps, tickets & wrapping paper.
Collage naturally simplifies your composition, as it encourages you to focus on the bigger shapes, textures, and colours, rather than intricate details. Organising pattern, colour & shape is a bit like putting a puzzle together to create a pleasing composition.
Much of my artwork has a slightly playful quality and I want to share with you my fun technique for creating your own colourful landscape in collage. My collage is inspired by the view I see every day on my painting holiday in France, from the garden at the beautiful Clos Mirabel Manor. Looking across vineyards & hills, dotted with little houses, the Pyrenees in the distance.
To create my patterned papers for collage, I’m using rubbing /embossing plates, coloured wax crayons and coloured watercolour ink. Texture plates can be used to make all manner of effects. Like the brass rubbings, you may have done as a child, lay thin copy paper over the texture plate and rub hard with a wax crayon to pick up the pattern and texture. Create washes of watercolour or ink colours over the top of the wax crayon which acts as a resist. You can experiment with multiple colours and multiple layers of colour. Let your paper dry before using.
Once you’ve created your collage papers here’s my simple step-by-step collage process in pictures. Simply cut or tear your papers and start to arrange and build your composition. Stick down the layers as you go with a glue stick or PVA.
Learn how to create a playful colourful collage with artist Jenny Muncaster
Collage is great fun and if you’re stuck for inspiration think about the things & places you love & remember to play like you were seven years old!!
IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE about my processes & techniques, I share lots of my tips & tricks on Instagram
or come and join my Make It Mixed Media 6-week courses at The Colour Factory Studios
