Art classes in Ennis, Co Clare at Ennis Art School

A collage (From the French: coller, to glue) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different materials.

A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique made a dramatic reappearance in the early 20th century as an art form when Picasso, Matisse and Braque becoming a distinctive part of modern art.

How to make a collage.
1. Paints (Acrylics/Oils/Watercolours).
2. Some brushes, knives, anything that you can make a mark with, i.e. toothbrushes, modelling tools etc.
3. Glue, PVA works well and is relatively non expensive, buy a large container, lasts longer.
4. Stretched Board canvas (a piece of wood will do as well, or hard paper although paper tends to warp).
5. Crafts Roller, great way of applying a lot of colour at once.
6. Scraps: images, printouts, nicknacks etc. Before doing anything, I suggest gathering your scraps and picking a theme. I would also suggest that you pick a relatively simple painting or collage previously created by an artist such as Picasso or Matisse and just copy it. As the color themes, concepts and styles have already been chosen and are working successfully. If you want to work quickly lay out and cut your papers before sticking them down, you can always work over an area is it is not working out. If you start out with a certain image, feel free to improvise and let the collage grow as it progresses. What makes any work of art exciting is that you never know what you are going to end up with. Put in images, take out images, put in colored paper take out paper. Keep going until you are happy with the end product, if you are not happy with what you have got, feel free to distroy it and either start again or be like me work it to death until you achieve a work or art that you are happy with. In most of my work there is at least four to five acceptable works underneath. You will always know when the collage/painting is finished, you will either love it and think it your best ever or you will leave it in a corner, facing the wall!