Collage Placemats Tutorial

Ok - enough of the philosophical. Time to move on to the fun stuff. I am starting out with a simple but thoughtful craft that you can do on your own or have your kids participate. It is inexpensive and it might just be the kind of project that gets you into the Creative Zone so that you will be willing to try some others.

Collage place mats can be simple or you can get elaborate. Totally up to you. You can make a set of generic looking ones or personalize them for a specific person.

Here is how you do it:

1. Collect materials for your collage, and find inspiration in them.
   • Traditional collage materials include scraps of paper and other flat materials: newspaper and magazine clippings, shopping bags, photographs (or photocopies of photographs), wallpaper, and foil.
   • Objects such as string, beads, feathers, and fabric are OK but you don't want your collage to be bumpy so try to stick with items that lay flat..
   • Collage may encompass images, text, solid colors, or a mixture of these. You may want a recognizable image or word, or simply a suggestion, feel, color, or texture.
   • Use what you have. Start from available materials and work out from there.
   • Create what you don't have. Since collage is an assemblage or blend of elements, it lends itself well to mixed media. You could paint, draw, stamp, or stencil in between the elements you find, or cover over them.
   • Don't rule out unusual materials, like sandpaper, blurry photographs, etc. The place mat below is made from fabric scraps.
   
   
2. Choose a base for your collage. The base is usually flat paper or poster board because these are easiest to work with.
   
   • The background does not have to be white, and it does not have to be plain. The background could include a page from a magazine or book, a large photograph, or a page of text. Paint or draw on it, or cover over it with anything that glue will stick to.
3. Prepare the base by cutting the base to the desired size and shape. I usually go with 16x12" Add any decorations or embellishments you want to the background.
4. Use scissors or an X-acto knife to cut out pieces for your collage. Try cutting your scraps into unusual shapes, cutting out words or letters from a variety of sources to make phrases on your collage, or cutting different pieces so that they fit together.
   • Pick images that reflect the recipients or make a set that are tied together with a theme. I make 4 for our family and each one has our name and a photo of us. I add silly hats, hair and animal bodies to our faces. I also include things that interest us. This year, Tim has a surf theme but last year it was all about mountain biking.
   • A cutting mat helps protect your table and helps make smooth cuts, or cut on top of a scrap of cardboard or an old magazine.
   • Cut out a whole picture, an identifiable part, or just enough to evoke texture, color, or feeling.
   • Cut different shapes for both words and images. Experiment with round and straight edges, regular and irregular shapes.
5. Try tearing materials too. The rough, random edges give parts of your collage a different character than cutouts.
6. Arrange the items on your background. You can arrange the whole thing, then glue, or you can arrange as you go if you prefer a more spontaneous approach.
   • Play with the juxtaposition of different elements and don't be afraid to make this part a messy process. Serendipity may hand you something interesting that you hadn't thought of.
7. Apply glue to each item and carefully but firmly press it down. Then, use your finger to rub it flat from the inside to the edges. Continue this process with each piece, overlapping pieces if you wish, until you are finished.
   • Glue underneath pieces before pieces on top.
   • You don’t have to cover the whole surface if you don’t want to, You can fold or crumple pieces of paper to get interesting textures and reliefs.
8. Let the finished collage dry completely. Depending on the glue(s) you used, you may need to let the collage dry for a few hours or more than a day.
9. Add any finishing touches. Do you want to apply a thin layer of paint or write or stamp over parts of it? Do you want to add textures, such as scratches?
10. Laminate the collage -I bring it to Kinkos. The do a great job and it only costs a couple bucks. I have an old Xyron with laminate that I bought solely for this purpose but it isn't firm enough and it peels over time. Kinko's laminate can be wipes with a sponge again and again without it affecting the laminate.
11. Ta-Dah! - you are all done. Ok now for the wrapping because these are shaped weird. Wrap it in the funny papers, go to the thrift store and buy a couple old record albums, then use the 2 sleeves as a "box" Tape them together and give as is or wrap them up with newspaper, magazines, or tuck them in a reuseable grocery bag...

An Artful Day

My house is a mess but I had an amazing Saturday making art. My dear friend, Miss Maggie (back from a 5 week holiday) came over and we spent the entire afternoon in the studio. Since neither of us had finished our Organic Background projects from our class with Paulette Insall last May, we decided to tackle the daunting task. We both loved the class but with each layer, we became less pleased with our projects. I imagine part of the problem was that, compared to Paulette's example piece, ours were a lot more "chaotic". Anyhow, on the last lesson we were supposed to add a focal point but neither of us could commit to an image so our paintings sat in the studio all summer - half naked.

Yesterday, we decided to shed our expectations and inhibitions and just do whatever we felt like doing while catching up on the details of summer. It was really wonderful! By the end of the day we had all 3 kids in the studio with us. They were painting clay beads we had made a few months earlier while Maggie and I transformed our pieces into something we could connect with.


I found a captivating picture of Yosemite in a 1936 Sunset magazine that I cut out and adhered to the right side with matte medium. I found another picture in a 1952 issue of National Geographic that I adhered to the left. I connected the two with acrylic paint and pen I covered the pink and green base I had created in the class with layers of blue, white, pink and purple, using the spray bottle technique with each layer to achieve some dimension and movement. I left the clouds make from sheet music alone since they worked with my over all design. I then found an old image of a small plane and a horse which I adhered with matte gel. I added photos of my family to give the collage life. Maggie was embossing right next to me and some of the opalescent embossing powder floated onto my picture. This was the perfect finishing touch. The end result was NOTHING like I expected nor what we learned in class, but I connected with the piece which is what I feel an artist needs to do to feel really satisfied with their work. Just my humble opinion.


Later in the evening, I finished my UGRA meet-up invites using the papers I made the night before. I covered postcard sized junk mail with several coats of gesso on each size. while they were drying, I cut the pages I had made the evening before into 3 x 2 squares. I adhered four squares to each post card then stamped and embossed UGRA across the front. I love the urban edge of these.

The colors of Autumn

When I was younger, I never thought of Autumn as a season to be enjoyed. Instead, it meant going back to school, farewell to summer , shorter days, colder weather and loads of sports on TV.
How things change... this year I officially declared Fall my favorite season. I love the way the air smells, the changing colors, the crisp cool mornings, the anticipation of the holidays. People say that California doesn't have a Fall, but I disagree. It is just a Californian Fall... Our backyard is alive with color and our grass is completely covered with leaves (just a day after raking). The kids and I had a wonderful time gathering foliage to make collages. They each had their own bag to collect all of Fall's treasures. Aidan thoughtfully looked for the most exciting leaves with interesting patterns and bold colors while Eva found joy in each and every leaf she picked up.
Like Halloween candy, the kids dumped their goodies on the table and selected their favorites. I gave them each a large puddle of glue on a plastic plate so they could enjoy the sticky, gooey sensations to the fullest. I felt so happy watching them dip their various bits into glue and randomly place them on sheets of chipboard. How easily they slip into the "creative zone".
Once the globs of Elmer glue are completely dry, I will go back with craft dots to secure the heavier items and then put them in a dark closet to thoroughly dry out. In a few weeks, we'll frame their artwork in shadow boxes so we can have a bit of fall all year round.