Collage Sources
Physical Media
What makes collage so accessible, is that as long as you have paper around you, you can work. For the analog method, whatever paper or object you have around can be used for your collage. Be it old magazines, newspapers, books (just unreadable ones please, have mercy), or even any scrap or miscellaneous item that you want to include, you may include it in your collage.
Digital Media
Some collage artists don't want to reveal their magic, or where they get it, and I think that's totally fine. I respect that. But I also would like to spring a point: if the intention of not disclosing where you get your sources for collage is to make sure nobody else gets it, that's low.
I don’t think there’s any use in gatekeeping collage sources, as anyone who's determined enough will find it eventually. And if you do share your sources, every different person will be impacted by different artworks and assets. Each person will use different things for different purposes. And if someone does make a better version of your work, so what? It can happen in any other artform.
Coming from the perspective of accessibility, I would love if more of my friends and mutuals did collages. If revealing links can open the door for them, I'm willing to do it myself. As you will notice from here on out, all of the sources I will enlist are free. You will also probably notice that some of these sites are old yet unbelievably comprehensive—filled to the brim with resources which I think speaks to their love of the game (archiving) here. No visit feels the same as the next, and each site can lead you to a rabbit hole. This is what the internet was really made for—people who want to save things and share them to other people, without caring for an algorithm. While some of the following sites contain ads, they basically give you the means to download, research, and learn all you want without needing to pay—though for some of these websites, you may financially support them.
Though I don't believe these sites were made with the thought of primarily considering collage artists, I definitely do find it very helpful to find sources from here, because of how educational yet adventurous it feels to be on these websites. This list will progress from official archive sites down to messier places to find resources. There are plenty more sites like these, but I wanted to focus on what I'll show as they're comprehensive enough for me and I love them. So without further adue, here are my favorite places to explore:
1. wikiart.org
Wikiart, like Wikipedia, hosts an online encyclopedia, but focuses specicially on the subject matter of artists and their visual art—ranging from paintings to even short films. Like most good things on the internet, this is non-profit and run for free, all done by a volunteer-based team. I love their ARTWORK OF THE DAY feature on the homepage, and it's always a blast when I get to read the author/artist description as well as the artwork bio for their artworks. Not all are public domain however, and so not all can be downloaded, but this is fine. For those in the public domain, they offer downloads in different resolutions, and sometimes even different scans, which is very helpful if you want the artwork to look a certain way.
2. artvee.com
Artvee, like Wikiart, hosts multitudes of artworks, but what I love about Artvee is just how professional it looks. Uploaded scans are always high-resolution, but they offer even better resolution when you're an Artvee-subscribed user. I also usually find artworks here that I can't find anywhere else, but I can say the same about later websites as well. They also offer artist and artwork descriptions, but not all pages get the same amount of biography notes. This site is very comprehensive, as Artvee hosts a myriad of collections that I didn't even know were a thing. Every refresh on the site also refreshes their featured homepage art, which is fun for when you're bored.
3. digitalcollections.nypl.org
The New York Public Library was recommended to me by a friend, and not something I found on my own, but I really love it! I'm glad their public library has an online platform, with scanned versions of their existing collections. The NYPL collection ranges from books, maps, to artworks of course. Most of the collection is downloadable for personal use, though some cannot be accessed on the website—you're encouraged instead to visit the library. I don't live in New York though or anywhere near the United States, so the website's the best I can get. And that's pretty enough.
4. publicdomainreview.org
Public Domain Review (PDR) is a host of two things: public domain collections and their reviews of such collections. Simple as that. With that being said however, what stands out to me about PDR is that their collections are so highly curated and their essays so well-written. One of my favorite essays in life is the essay "The Kept and the Killed", written by Erica X Eisen. It's about a vast collection of commissioned Great Depression photographs that were essentially decommissioned or "killed" with a punched hole in their center. Essays like these, which reflect on art—even unwanted art—are what makes PDR so special to me. The commentaries and essays really add vital information and reflection on the public domain collections themselves, and that makes this site always worth revisiting for me.
5. publicdomainq.net
This one's a fun one. Public Domain Q is a Japanese public domain website, but it doesn't necessarily contain only Japanese-related public domain media. It has other artworks from other regions and different periods as well, but what makes Public Domain Q so distinct and fun (for me, at least) is that if you want to save or download their content, you have to answer a trivia question. If you get the answer wrong, you can just try again; if you get it right, it shows you a download link to high-quality scans and pictures. I think that's quite fun even if I don't always know what the trivia's talking about, but I appreciate the effort to include a mechanic for a simple website like this.
Now it can be confusing to explore the website, as it's written in Japanese. Its other pages also link to stock photos and AI "art", which for a public domain site honestly makes sense. I don't care for AI-generated images, especially since they're usually used by grifters who claim it as their own artwork, so it's somewhat cathartic to see AI content in public domain, where no one rightly owns them.
6. pulpcovers.com
Moving on from official public domain sites, now we enter the realm of dedicated blogs. Blogs like these don't always contain public domain material, but they instead can be used for your collages under Fair Use. As such, Pulp Covers is a long-time running blog, dedicated to the pulp magazine era from the 1930s up to around 1960s(?). Pulp magazines could be considered as the older relative to the comics we know today, considerably cheaper and a lot more unrestricted. With such a low barrier to accessibility, pulp magazines boomed, and in order to compete with one another and other magazines, became known for their lurid, sensual, and overall controversial content. In order to get attention, their cover artworks had to get attention.
Though not all pulp magazine artworks are in the public domain (more on this gray area later), those that do hold copyright can't be tracked down due to no longer being in business. Pulp magazine artworks are a messy place, with there being so much around and yet so little credit to be found for their artists. What Pulp Covers tries to do, at the very least, is create an archive of these artworks and keep them alive, as evidences of a bygone era. The scans are high-resolution, and they give credit whenever they can find credit.
7. 80sanime.tumblr.com
80s Anime is a dedicated blog that hasn't uploaded for quite some time, but I still believe it's a great source nonetheless. It hosts clips and screenshots from older anime shows, as well as manga pages and concept sketches. Since the year of origin for 80s Anime is still fairly recent, they do not belong in the public domain, but can be relatively argued for Fair Use.
8. monsterbrains.blogspot.com
Monster Brains is, well, the site you go for monsters. It's got every kind of creature—from early Japanese manga, to old European, to pulp fiction—you name it and they probably have a scan for it. I love checking this site out when I want to feel inspired or if I'm scratching an itch to create a monster of my own. You can always tell that the artworks have been lovingly cleaned, edited, and scanned for their own personal delight, and that's what I love about dedicated blogs like these. Monster Brains has an almost endless amount of creatures in its caverns, so be sure to check it out.
9. vintagemanga.tumblr.com
Vintage Manga focuses specifically on older manga, which according to the site dates "from the beginning to 2000s". Like Pulp Covers, some of the artworks here can contain some sensual or violent content, so you have my warning. The artworks however are really gorgeous and well-preserved. It even has various, albeit random pages from different manga, and I appreciate the effort to show exterior and interior artworks. Like with the previous dedicated blogs, artworks in Vintage Manga may be used under Fair Use in your collages.
10. assemblyman-eph.blogspot.com
Capping off the dedicated blogs with this behemoth—Assemblyman is run by a guy just named Joel, and his blog is massive. It mostly contains editorial and magazine artworks from publications that have long since passed. His sources come from everywhere—from archive sites to other dedicated blogs and even his own collection, I believe—and the effort just shows. Visiting Assemblyman for the first time feels like dipping your toes in a pool only to find out it's as deep as the ocean. Honestly, it feels like that every time. What amazes me about the Assemblyman collection is that you can find bits and pieces about his own life throughout his posts. He even collaborates with other blogs and willing translators, which speaks to the love of the game. You can see how he's just developed this eye for finding interesting things, and it just floors me how a little more effort in observing life can make it feel a little more full.
The only downsides I can find are that, like most blogs of its time, it's poorly formatted, so images take up majority of the site's pages. There are also posts with missing pictures, which is unfortunate, but this isn't always the case and I still think Assemblyman is worth checking out.
BONUS: Stock Photo pages
I have other sources still, but I wanted to limit it to 10 links. However, as a bonus, I do want to at least highlight two stock-photo websites: Freepik and Unsplash. Stock photos are great for commercial collages, since most of the elements or assets that you need to render have to come from a more modern setting and would need more realistic lighting or proportions. Stock photos are a great source if you just want to find something quick and easy, and these sites provide plenty of filters to help you find exactly what you may be looking for.
BONUS BONUS: Pinterest/Social Media to Google Pipeline
So, let's say you found a cool-looking picture on the internet. Maybe you found it on Twitter. Maybe you found it on Instagram. Quite probably, you found it on Pinterest. Most of the time, these pictures go unlabeled, uncredited, and then no one ends up more informed than they were before they found the picture. And worse, it can gain a lot of likes and clicks even if the poster doesn't own it. How do you trace an image's source to find out where it comes from and if you can use it for your collage? Even if the comments can indicate the source, one way I make sure I find the image's rightful owner is by using Google Images. This isn't always the best method, as so many versions of one image can exist and be more pixelated or filtered than the next, but it's always worth a try.
First, get the image. You can right-click on your laptop to copy the image or copy the direct URL link itself. Afterwards, you'll want to head on over to images.google.com, then click on the camera icon, after which you can paste either the picture or the URL you copied.
Afterwards, what Google Images will do is show you the results for where the image might come from. What you'll want to do here is to click "Find Image Source" to find exact copies.
From here, my general rule of thumb for finding the best source comes in three guidelines:
- The picture is in high resolution (1080 pixels or higher)
- The picture is captioned with an appropriate title and author
- The picture comes from a legitimate or established website, usually its URL ending in .gov or .org
If it checks 2 out of the 3 guidelines, that's good enough for me. As we can see for this painting, the best source I found was from a tumblr blog Classical Gentry. Voila.
Now that all of that has been discussed, it's time to get into the nitty-gritty. The fine line. I've shown you links, I've shown you resources, now let's determine how to use them with discretion. Just because you can use anything for collage, it doesn't mean that you always should.