Collages Are Our Visual Manifestations
I am a firm believer that collages are a representation of our visual manifestations. And as an artist, collages represent a wonderful opportunity to experiment outside of our usual artistic limitations and allow ourselves the space to play creatively.
Because we all need a push to play more with our art!
Welcome back to A Creative Hot Mess and a fun intro to one of my favorite artistic mediums: digital collages!
So here’s my “why I love digital collages and why you should too”:
Low Barrier to Entry: For the artists that have a hard time admitting they are artists.
Heres the hack: download Pinterest, hit the + button, click “create collage”, and go to town. You have every single image on Pinterest at your disposal, on a platform that holds your entire Pinterest board memory and any image you could truly ever want.
This is the easiest and most accessible collage tool I have found and I try to use it as much as possible. Give it a shot!
Trying Something New:
Digital collages can be the perfect, low risk opportunity to dabble in something you new. It can be scary to commit your time and effort into a piece that is completely foreign to you. But I believe, and I know many artists can back me up here, that this is where you grow as an artist. But the jump from 0 to 100 as you put that first stroke onto a blank canvas, can be incredibly overwhelming. So, this one’s for the artists that want to try something new but haven’t had the time or capacity to do so. But even more so, it’s to let your life become whatever you want it to.
Visualizing Life Changes:
Maneuvering your 20s is like developing a creative brand — your mind is the organized creative director and your life is the chaotic content. Collages can act as visual representations of your inner mind, of the feelings and creative desires you haven’t been able to connect yet. There’s a reason collages are a common practice in therapy. They can help you unlock a different part of your brain, help you process something you hadn’t been able to put into words yet, or give you a new visual representation of something you hadn’t been able to comprehend within your own mind. Every time I do a collage, I learn something about myself.
Quick, Easy, Brainless:
Stop planning, stop thinking, JUST DO IT (thanks nike). Not but seriously, I LOVE a tangible collage, arranging all of the pieces just the way you want, cutting out the pages in unlimited fun shapes and sizes, getting the glue stuck to your fingers a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I still think actual paper collages are the winners. But I’m a busy gal and I don’t have access to as many inspiration magazines as I would like. So digital collages tend to win out with the free time that I have available in my life. If you need something quick and easy, something fun and engaging, something simple but impactful, go get that creative brain working and get it going! These are my favorite apps for digital collages:
SCRL
Pinterest (duh)
Canva
MY FAVORITE DIGITAL COLLAGE TIP!
Background Remover Tool
One thing I LOVE for digital collages is using a background remover tool.
Pinterest has this feature built into their collage tool for free (which I used for most of the collages above), but Canva pro (what I used for this Tuscan collage) is more exact with the trimming of an image and is what I prefer for more professional collage work.
For an example of this tool being used in my professional illustrations, view Below the Tides .
Here’s a recent collage I just shared on Instagram that I created with Pinterest:
So go ahead, give it a shot, and PLEASE feel free to send me any of your pieces at my email:
raquel.kalpakoff@gmail.com !
Keep creating,
Raquel Kalpakoff
