This project was definitely a challenge. The reason I take photos is because it’s easier for me to come up with something creative based off of things that are already in the shot than it is to start with a blank sheet of paper and add stuff to it. Anytime I’m making something (like a collage,  a drawing, or a painting) I always either add too much or not enough. I think that’s made evident in my collages.

I originally planned to pick up black and white objects with a spattering of red to try and minimize the color and focus more on the patterns and textures. I ended up in a bit of a rush and just got the first 10 items I could think of. I ended up with smarties wrappers, smarties, a straw and straw wrapper, a cup lid, a coffee stirrer, a plastic bag, an Amy’s ice cream cup, and packets of honey and sweetener. The colors are all over the place and the only continuity I can find is in the geometric shapes of the items.

The first collage pictured is the first one I made. I used one of my gestalt pictures as the background and tried to emphasise certain shapes or lines using the objects I found. I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, other than meet the requirements of the project, so that’s all I did. I also made the mistake of using objects that were really hard for me to cut out using an x-acto knife (I’m surprised I still have 10 fingers), so by the time I cut out all the objects, I was indifferent about how they looked on paper.

The second collage I made, I only had the cup lid and plastic bag left on my list of items to use. I had a lot of scrap paper lying around and thought I could create something cool using round shapes and focusing on color (or lack thereof) and texture. I think if I had made this collage on a vintage-looking yellow paper that it would look better because of the color triad and it would allow the gray/ “clear” elements to stand out more.

Overall I think my knife skills have improved but I need to work more on composition.