Teaching Digital Collage (and other visual art approaches) for non-art teacher specialists What can the

average/non-arts specialist teacher show students about creating a digital collage? The following are some areas well worth exploring with students. The first 3 require no talent or acquired skills. The fourth, the How To is hands on, but because digital collage is such a user friendly, everyman can be an artist approach, non art teachers/non artists can handle it well and easily. 1. History of collage (sometimes referred to also as photo montage or two dimensional assemblage). Here are some informational links that explain and that can be tapped by teachers as they put together background and overview presentations for students: COLLAGE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage COLLAGE ART: http://www.collageart.org/ This one will require considerable exploration as it is varied and extensive What is Collage? http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-collage.htm#lbss What is a Collage? http://edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_42_164.html Kid friendly explanation Collage Machine: http://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/collagemachine.htm A fun, interactive online collage resource that can be useful in fostering learning about arrangement/composition and decision making for those involved in making collage art National Collage Society: http://www.nationalcollage.com/ Visit the galleries of annual juried exhibitions for many examples of well created collages The Art of Collage: http://becauseilive.hubpages.com/hub/The_Art_of_Collage VuVox Collage: http://www.vuvox.com/collage An interesting tool more advanced

2. Artists who made this type of work why they made this type of art work, etc. ArtLex Collage: http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/c/collage.html Page of examples

COLLAGE ART: http://www.collageart.org/ Many examples of collage artists and their work Romare Bearden: http://www.beardenfoundation.org/education/lessons.shtml This is a very rich site worthy of deep exploration follow the links too, to other sites that give great resources concerning Bearden, one of the best examples of a collage artist Joseph Cornell: http://www.twistedvintagestudio.com/Twisted-VintageBlog/the-ten-best-collage-artists-of-all-time-joseph-cornell.html

3. Appreciation What makes a good collage? Discovering Composition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWebbq2-t-8 Telling Stories with Collage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz1cL2CzBCU Jack Kirby: Collages in Context - http://imprint.printmag.com/illustration/jackkirby%E2%80%99s-collages-in-context/ How to Make a Collage: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Collage Collage Art: http://www.kaleidosoul.com/collageart.html From KaleidoSoul / a spiritual approach and application of the art of collage What Makes a Good Photo? http://www.luminouslandscape.com/essays/art2.shtml The same principles of design that apply to collage also apply to photography (and drawing, and painting, etc.) 9 Steps to Creating Better Compositions: http://emptyeasel.com/2006/11/24/9-steps-to-creating-better-compositions/ The same principles of design that apply to collage also apply to photography (and drawing, and painting, etc.) Visual Artistic Composition Part 1- Plato's Rule http://thevirtualinstructor.com/composition1.html Theres a great deal more on this subject out on the web waiting for you to find it 4. How To techniques and approaches to making a good collage Whats special about collage?

Halfway between drawing and photograph Photos relieve the artist in his struggle to accurately represent things. Artists, particularly young artists easily become frustrated and discouraged at their own inability to accurately produce drawings that establish an image of things as they really appear or at least as our eye expects them to look. In image making, the photo is a great step forward image, allowing anyone to capture whats seen. Its also true, however, that unless the actual thing is in front of the camera, the camera cant capture it. And so, if a photo of a tiger is wanted, the photographer must find a real tiger to photograph. Photos are, to a large degree, finished as soon as they are taken. There is little opportunity for the artist to change things in the photo or to change the relationships between things in the photo. Even if the photographer manages to travel to the jungle or the zoo and finds a tiger standing still, once the photo is taken the tiger will remain frozen, facing left even if the artist wants it to face right, or with a tree behind it, even if the artist wants it by itself. The collage is the answer to this dilemma, offering the artist the opportunity to benefit from photos establishing representation reality without have to laboriously learn and go through the rigors of the variety skills involved in drawing, but allowing him to make changes. By finding and collecting a photo (or many) of a tiger there is no struggle involved in placing in the picture a representation of a tiger. More tigers? Simply print or copy and paste as many copies of the original images as desired? Want the tiger in front of a tree? Paste it in that way? Want it peeking out from behind the tree? Paste it in that way? Want a bird perched on the tigers nose? Find a photo of a bird, free it from its background, and paste it in that position. And if you find the perfect bird picture, but its too large? Using the computer, adjust the size then paste it in? The possibilities and the freedoms that collage, digital collage, are very rich and there is a great variety of them. The collage as a picture All 2 dimensional works of art, whether they be drawings, paintings, prints, or collages exhibit a number of basic design principles that determine their quality and efficacy. Here are a few of the most important, things that students can understand and whose artwork can benefit from Composition If you have 3 elements from which to create a collage, how will they be placed within it? Many novice artists, and this includes a great many students, are unaware that there is a choice, a crucial choice to be made here. The result is that they place the things in their picture in a haphazard way. If you were to ask, why did you put the dog over there in the upper left

hand corner? A common response would be something like I dont know. I didnt think about it. I just put it down there. The composition of a picture is one of the most powerful aspects of its design, and unless it is consciously accounted for, it will detract from the effect of the finished piece, rather than contribute to it.

Yes, they are all pictures of a dog, but Where would you place the dog in the picture? Why? Figure Ground / Positive-Negative Space Overlapping

Where is the dog in relation to the tree? In the first picture the dog is clearly in front of the tree, because the picture of the dog is overlapping that of the tree. In the second picture we see a dog and a tree and cant determine the relationship between the two. Value

The value of a color is the relative lightness or darkness of that color. All three dogs are shown against a blue background. However, the value of these various blues gives each a different feel and impact. Which one would you choose? Why? Distance Artists in the Renaissance developed the practice of perspective in order to give depth to their pictures. Perspective can require a considerable amount of technical learning, however there are some basic ideas that artists and students can use to create the effect of depth in their pictures that dont require much learning.

Its easy to tell the spatial relationship between these dogs. Clearly one is closest to the viewer, one furthers, and one in the middle. Its also easy to guesstimate distance from the viewer as a few feet to the closest dog and perhaps 15 20 feet to the furthest away. This spatial effect is achieved by repeating the same image (we know that these dogs are all pretty much the same size which contributes to the effect of distance). Notice, too, that the further the dogs seem to be from the viewer, the higher up on the page they are placed. And finally, notice that the dogs overlap. The dog thats closest to the viewer clearly must overlap the one behind it. In pictures that depict great distances, there is also the atmospheric effect that the Rennaisance artists used. Mountains as a great distance, for instance, appear lighter than the ones closer. They are also bluish and their color becomes less vivid.

Some More Projects that can be done with the Digital Collage technique Digital Joseph Cornell Box http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cornell/ Digital Diorama http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/2012/01/photoshop-tutorial-digitaldiorama/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Ozj-VPpKs Themes to apply to the Scrapbook Approach: 1) Virtual Time Capsules

2) 3D collages? Applying collage to sculpture see the chapter in our book Marisol Box Sculpture Heres a YouTube video I made to illustrate the concept: http://youtu.be/F17qXr-BJh4