Why Collage?

Maybe it doesn’t matter (yet) to you, but I want to provide a few cases to explain why I believe collage is an artform worth trying.

You may also think of each argument here as a case against why I think AI “art” is a waste of time, when there are much better alternatives—like collage—to use.

It’s Highly Accessible

What I like about collage is that the artform is very much accessible. Like drawing, you technically would only need two things to work with: paper and glue. You may use scissors, but you also may just use your hands to rip and tear the paper. People who don’t call themselves artists may have a hard time approaching art, as the time it takes to develop the skill can depend on the person. Collage also requires skill to perform, but if you want to see the results of what you envisioned, as long as you have the right collage pieces, you may more or less get close to your imagination, even as a beginner. You do not necessarily have to paint or sketch or color, but if you do get interested in adding that to the collage, you’re free to do so.

Once you have cut up your pieces, you can apply glue to the ends of each piece and paste them on the paper. That’s pretty much it, and the speed in which you complete each artwork depends only on how many pieces you’re using.

Gives Room to Grow

Since collage uses existing sources, it may be difficult to conceive that your collage art can grow and develop, since you don’t exactly have to paint or draw but are instead using rendered pieces of your own choosing. With that being said, collage is all about knowing which goes with what: creating an artwork based mostly out of just composition rather than from scratch. The way you compose and arrange your collage will start to change as you develop your taste, look at other collage artworks, and find other inspirations. Your taste in what you create may change as well–will you be doing minimalist collages or will you be filling up the whole canvas?

I’ll give a personal example. While I never really strayed away from a maximalist approach, I’d say I've learned how to better use different textures and pieces together, making a more coherent image. Here's a comparison of two artworks I made—the first one from 2014 and the other from 2022. Although I used different pieces, both collages are about an arrival to a new, strange land. The second artwork is a lot more clear with the themes I wanted to convey, and it is also literally clearer than the original artwork, since I was just foolishly grabbing low-resolution pictures from the internet 10 years ago. What do you think?

You Can Experiment

Technically, you only need to work with paper, glue, and maybe scissors to make a collage. But where minimal requirements exist, options abound. Artists such as Seth Clark use different materials like wool, charcoal, and illustration materials charcoal, acrylic, and pastel for his collages. Troy Browne, a digital collage artist, creates animations with his collages—quite literally moving the pieces frame by frame.

Many ways exist as to how one would execute a collage and there’s no real limit to the assets you may use. Personally, I think that’s what’s so fun about it! It can be quite liberating to just cut and tear in any way you would like—toss in some painting and drawing in there and it still works. I saw a post online somewhere that said collage is a lot like taking samples in music or even remixing, and I think that’s a fair comparison. There are no limits!

Good Practice for Composition

Another thing I love about collage is that it’s a form that focuses heavily on composition. As an artist that also designs and draws, collage is a great refresher for me when I just want to practice how to arrange different figures on a canvas to create more dynamic and interesting artworks. This is great for artists who may not want to draw or proceed with their drawing yet, but would like to use other references to see how the drawing might look.

Time to time, when I plan my drawings, I do a little collage test to see how the composition looks before committing to the outline. There are also times I do this the other way around, sketching a little draft before committing, especially when I’m pitching collage artworks to clients. Since collage doesn’t always need to include drawing, it is essentially an artform that focuses on arranging shapes or silhouettes in a box—and I find that it is a good practice for composition this way.

Here are two composition examples I have. Both were spot collages (collages meant to fill in a spot, hence the name) for a magazine I worked on. Creating shapes and blocks are very helpful in helping me know what amount of space I'm allowed to play in, and so for the first example I knew exactly the composition I was going to go for. But for the second example, I showed my initial sketch first, but was ultimately unsatisfied by it and so went back to the composition blocking to create an entirely different collage.

Learn as You Cut

This might sound nerdy (it definitely does), but as I mentioned before, the real root of what I love to do is archiving. I love saving artworks and keeping a copy of my own, and part of that means learning about the original painter or artist’s intention with the artwork and even getting to learn about their own life. There’s something personally special about finding something and learning about it, only to find yourself in a rabbit hole of new information and perspectives. I think that exploration can sustain you in doing collages, because the more you find new sources, the more you can see what they were made for and how to use them. You get to learn when you view collages as collaborating with these artistic pieces and the artists behind them, and I think that's exciting.