Multimedia collages are a form of art expression I enjoy, and they have been really great gifts to give as well. When you make a special gift of art, it it’s VERY touching to the recipient.
The collage in the image to your left is a a project I made for my mom to give to a friend of hers. I snooped around on her Facebook page to find photos of her to use, asked my mom about her interests and hobbies, where did she go to school, and more. Then I use used the photos in printed onto plain paper, decorative papers, paint, and chalk to create the collage.
View a gallery of my collages for ideas at the end of this article. Feel free to use them for inspiration. You can certainly copy them for your own creation, but you’ll likely have your own ideas.
I have one collage that is a 4′ x 4′ piece on canvas that hangs on my own wall, but most of the collages are 11″ x 14″, and some of my favorites are on these wood small blocks described in the next section, 6″ x 6″. Any size will do!
Another collage idea: Make a vision board!
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Below is a list of supplies I use to make the collages. I’m pointing you to some lovely wood panels. My favorite is the small Claybord by Ampersand, a beautiful wood cradle with a clay finish on top. They’re so lovely, no framing required. I prefer the thick 2″ blocks in 6×6 for really fun small projects. For a little larger collage, I use a simpler 11″ x 14″ wood panel. You can also use even larger stretched canvases. These might work out for larger projects due to the weight, but the wood blocks are sure nice too. I’ve included links to paints, adhesive, fixative, papers, paints, and paintbrushes. I use cheap brushes because you aren’t really needing precise brush work with these projects. Mostly for slapping on adhesive or coverage with mediums.
Step One: Get inspired! Need some ideas?
This is my favorite book for collage inspiration. It’s packed full of creative ideas and techniques with pictures to get your creative juices flowing. I also frequently find the gift recipient’s social medial pages to find out what interests them, to snatch photos to “artify” and include on personal collages. My favorite photo editor app is PhotoLab. You can create cartoon images of faces, really fun, but mostly just start with a photo and have fun with it.
Step Two: Purchase supplies.
Here are my must-have supplies for making collages.
Supplies
Acrylic Paints Pastels Acrylic Medium Adhesive Claybords
Wood Panels Art Canvas Fixative Decorative Papers Paint Brushes
How to Make A Collage
- First, you’ll have to select your canvas or board and size. I really like the wood panels, but I also have one collage in my home that is on a stretched canvas that is about 4′ x 4′.
- Decide on an idea and what you will put on it.
- If you’re making a collage for a person, you can visit their social medial pages for photos to include – I usually run photos into an art app like PhotoLab to artify and distort it a little bit to make it interesting. Maybe even use a portion of the photo.
- You can use a spray adhesive for temporary placement of items.
- Use paint, pastels, and papers to create a mixed media collage.
- Select a medium to pain over the top. Some are matte finishes, some are glossy. You’ll have to experiment to see what you like.
- When I am finished with my design, I cover it with wax paper and then smooth out any wrinkles so they don’t distort your design (but you might like the wrinkles too sometimes)
- Let it dry at least overnight and peel off the wax paper.
- You might decide on more medium to put over the top if you want.
- There are no rules. Do whatever you want and have fun!
My Collage Gallery
Here is a gallery of my own designs. I hope they inspire some of your own designs. Yesss, feel free to copy cat them. Some of these are small collages, some larger, a few really large, even though I provided images all the same size for web-site aesthetics. Most of them are a snippet of the larger collage, just to size them all similarly for the page. Do anything you want!
