Some historical facts
The history of collage goes back several centuries, but at the beginning of the 20th century this technique reached a new level. The idea of creating such images has become a distinctive trend in modern art. The term comes from the French coller, which means “gluing”. Avant-garde works were created using this technique.
A new round in the history of the development of collage technology has spread thanks to two famous artists. In 1910-1912 Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque realized the idea of this composition. Later this method became widespread and gained incredible popularity.
Basic materials and tools
The set of materials will depend on the main idea and manufacturing method. At minimal cost you can get by with the most affordable components. But if you manage to select unusual bright materials, the collage will turn out to be very original. The main materials can be:
- colored paper or foil;
- canvas;
- paints (oil, acrylic, watercolor, tempera);
- colorful bright fabric;
- wood;
- transparencies;
- cardboard;
- plastic or plastic;
- wood varnish.
In addition to materials, you will need tools for work: scissors, a stationery knife with replaceable blades, glue, rags.
This is just an approximate list of possible collage materials. The dimensions of the future work of art, as well as the placement, shape and set of components are limited only by the author’s imagination.
To feel like a truly creative avant-garde artist, you can give free rein to your own imagination and try to realize something non-trivial. You can use any little things for decoration: buttons, buttons, coins, beads, seed beads, etc.
Process of creation
Creating such objects of art is not at all difficult. You need to turn on your imagination, give free rein to your dreams and imagination, and acquire the necessary materials. Then you can safely begin to implement your plans.
Work on the composition can be divided into three stages:
- First of all, you need to decide on the topic. This could be a love story, travel, places that have yet to be visited, wedding, family and friend photos.
- Selection of materials. First of all, you need to look among the old things. Perhaps among them there is something that can be used for creativity. If not, you will have to purchase the missing materials.
- Manufacturing plan and detailed design. This is the most interesting part of the job. It is important to consider that the finished “picture” must be harmoniously combined with other interior elements.
Instructions
If this is your first job, then it would be best to find master classes on “how to make a collage at home.” Many people post detailed video tutorials online that show all the nuances.
However, this is a fairly simple task, to complete which you just need to read the description of the process.
- First, lay out the photos on a horizontal surface, think about a plan for their placement. Consider all options, don't settle on the first one. Consider the placement of other decorative elements. You will end up with a layout that will need to be fixed.
- Securing cards. Make sure that the fastenings are either invisible or fit harmoniously into the overall picture.
- Adding additional details. This item is carried out at your request, but it will definitely add zest to the collage.
- Attaching the background to the wall. This point can be done both before fixing all the elements on it, and after. Consider the weight of your work to avoid the unpleasant situation of falling decoration.
Read here: Features of replacing old heating batteries
Note: if your collage involves gaps and spaces between photos, then you can’t just leave them empty. Fill them either with the same decorative elements, or draw something suitable there. The emptiness will look ugly, as if the work is unfinished or spoiled.
Preparing the base
There are an incredible number of ideas for posting photos. If the wall is a flat, monochromatic background, you can do without any base. But if you still decide to place images on any substrate, you can consider several options:
- The simplest solution is considered to be a regular sheet of paper. You can give it any color you want, apply inscriptions and patterns, and then post a photo. Creating a collage of photographs on whatman paper with your own hands is quite simple. In addition, this will require a minimum set of materials.
- Styrofoam is another simple but convenient idea. Photos can be attached using the buttons. Over time they can be updated.
- Tree. This can be either a treated surface or a cut of the barrel coated with varnish. Wood will perfectly enrich any interior.
- Canvas or fabric. In appearance, this background is a bit like paper, but the fabric base is more durable.
- A piece of linoleum or laminate. Perhaps after the repair there was an unused piece of such coating. It is also great as an alternative background for images.
- If you place images directly on the wall, you can use frames. Each picture will be neatly framed. This stylish design will wonderfully decorate any interior. Another great idea for decorating your room with your own hands is a collage of photo frames on the wall.
To correctly and accurately determine the size of the required covering, you must first place photographs on the floor. All details must be positioned as planned on the collage. When the optimal placement of the elements has been determined, you can begin cutting out the shape of the base.
Additional Tips
Sometimes, to create a photo collage with your own hands, all you need is an idea. If you purposefully sit and squeeze an idea out of yourself, then nothing good will come of it. In such situations, viewing other people's work will help. Looking at them, you want to repeat the idea, bringing your own details into it.
In the public domain you can always find millions of options that will suit the taste of many. The main thing is to use the option that you can reproduce with your own hands. Other people's ideas will answer the question of how to make a collage from photographs with your own hands.
Collecting children's photographs in photo albums is certainly an interesting activity. But putting together a fun photo collage on your own will be much more interesting. The simplest solution would be to design a collage in a computer program and then print it out in the desired size. But if you have ready-made photographs of children, they will look much better on a collage of your own making.
Related article: Decoration pillows: how to make it yourself (+40 photos)
If you decorate the craft with buttons, bright fabric and beads, and then stretch it onto a frame, then no child will remain indifferent. Every detail in the collage should connect a person with warm memories from childhood.
Unusual design of a collage with photographs (2 videos)
Ideas for creating a collage (35 photos)
Tips and tricks
Often the main problem is a lack of ideas. Sometimes it’s difficult to just squeeze something new out of yourself. It helps a lot to get acquainted with the implementation of other people’s creative ideas. By looking through other people's works, you can take existing ideas as a basis, bring in something of your own and find a unique, stylish design solution.
If it is difficult to imagine how a particular combination of photographs will look on the wall, it is better to use special computer programs. They will help you choose the most suitable background, optimal location and select additional elements. And most importantly, this method allows you to see firsthand how appropriate the chosen method of placing images is.
The approximate flow of working with the program is as follows:
- download a program (for example, Photo Collage) and install it on your computer;
- click “create a new project”;
- choose a template and type of collage;
- upload selected photos to the program;
- beautifully arranged and edited;
- save.
One of the simplest ways to make a photo collage on your wall with your own hands is to print an image created in a special program, combining many small photos, and attach it in the chosen place.
Scene selection
In addition to traditional family photos, you can come up with a lot of great photo collage ideas. The main thing is that the finished work of art brings positive emotions, awakens the best memories and inspires.
What you need for a collage
At first it may seem that creating a DIY wall craft from photo cards is very difficult. But, having started work, the stereotypical opinion is instantly dispelled. You just need to use your imagination and acquire the necessary materials to reproduce your plans.
The process of creating an entire composition consists of three steps, arranged in chronological order:
1. Choosing the theme of the composition . Family travel or traveling around the world in the company of your friends, a love story, just family photos - the choice is up to the author.
Related article: How to make a panel for a children's room: some interesting ideas (+64 photos)
2. Selection of materials that will be used in the work. Often things that are lying around on shelves are used. If there are none, then you should go to the store.
3. Design of details . It must be remembered that nothing is done quickly, so this stage requires patience and accuracy. It must be remembered that the work will have to decorate the walls of the house, so maximum perseverance is required.
Design Rules
In addition to selecting the plot, determining the composition and other details, there are several important points. To flawlessly implement a collage idea, you need to listen to the opinions of interior designers. There are several important steps.
Wall selection
To achieve maximum impact, you need to carefully choose your wall. The ideal option is an absolutely free and monochromatic surface, on which there are no sconces, paintings or posters. In addition, it is best to place the collage on the far wall so that you can appreciate the composition from some distance.
Design experts do not recommend placing collages on the stairs or in the hallway. In such rooms it will not be possible to achieve the desired effect. It will only give the impression that there are photographs, but not a single structured composition.
It is advisable that there is no large furniture near the wall: a double bed, a wide table, etc. Since it will interfere with free passage, and viewers will not have the opportunity to clearly see the subjects of the photographs. Above the beds, it is best to place neutral images rather than family photos.
Watch the video on how to make a photo collage
The main thing is to decide for what purpose the idea should be brought to life. A do-it-yourself birthday collage can be made in an original and surprising way, and various options for creating it can help with this.
- A simple photo collage is made for a person with whom common memories are connected - walks, friendship, celebrations, various work moments. For this, a bunch of photographs are used that are directly related to the birthday person and those captured moments in the lives of several people who will give him a gift.
On a piece of plywood, for example, or thick cardboard, paper is glued as a background - it can be of any chosen color. The photographs are glued onto the already glued paper in a chaotic order, touching each other and it turns out that some photos peek out from behind each other. As an option, photos are attached using buttons. Various figures and small magnets are glued between the photographs, specks of glue are applied and glitter is sprinkled on them.
The frame is made from thin wooden planks, foam plastic strips for baseboards, embroidered with thread, knitted with yarn, lined with matches, as well as strips of colored paper rolled into tubes, rags, and pieces of felt.
- A more complex photo collage, for example, a gift for a work colleague - a serious person with little smile - is made with Photoshop elements. To do this, a picture is painted on the prepared canvas, which shows a colleague swimming next to a dolphin, lying on a yacht - in a word, you need to capture a moment of relaxation in order to evoke a soft smile in a serious person, and not an attack of hysteria.
The head in the drawing is not drawn, but taken and cut out from a photo of a colleague, then attached to the drawn body. By the way, the dolphin and the yacht can also be cut out, for example, from a magazine about cruises.
The frame of the finished collage is made of seashells laid out and glued along the edges of the pattern in order to create the effect of the presence of a strict colleague at sea.
- A birthday gift in the form of a collage for a husband or wife is made taking into account the life situation. If the wife is expecting a child, and the husband gives her a gift, you can make a collage in which the wife is depicted with several children in her arms. Nearby there are several strollers, a table with a bunch of bottles, and a little further away, a huge bouquet of flowers with an inscription that the expectant mother is loved very much and no matter how many children she gives birth to, she will always be beautiful and young.
A collage of painted candies and real ones looks very interesting, for example, a tree on which candies “grow” - some cannot be eaten, while others can be eaten. A flower collage is also suitable for a girl or wife, where photographs of lovers or already married people are intertwined with leaves or decorated with flower petals.
A wife can give her husband a collage for his birthday, made on a sheet of Whatman paper, which, for example, will depict a green field, and on it - a bunch of all sorts of equipment, such as planes, cars, tanks, cut out from magazines. But among all this there will be a real radio-controlled helicopter attached to the sheet with thin wires threaded through the sheet.
In general, if the spouses decide to give each other a collage as their main birthday gift, there are many options for its implementation, from humorous-erotic to romantic-serious. The main thing to consider is the amount of sense of humor you have, if the collage is humorous, so as not to offend your better half.
- Collage - a gift to school - is very easy to make. It is made in the same way as a school wall newspaper and all that is needed to make it is an A1 sheet (Whatman paper), photographs of classmates and a lot of imagination.
It’s as easy as shelling pears to make a collage for graduation - cut out the heads of classmates from the photo, paste them onto a sheet of paper, and then draw on the background. A train carrying yesterday's schoolchildren into adulthood; a caravan of camels walking through the desert and meeting an oasis with the inscriptions “family”, “work”, marriage.”
As a gift to your favorite teacher for his anniversary, you can make a collage of photos of students and paint on the bodies of angels and wings, designing a sheet with a collage in such a style that the students will never forget their teacher and will be his guardian angels and assistants in any work. Depict the teacher at home when he is preparing food, and the “angel” student serves him food, for example.
If there are animal lovers among the teachers at school, you will get a wonderful collage from a bunch of photographs of cats and a person, or several people.
Teachers can also make collages for their favorite classes who won some kind of competition, distinguished themselves in poetry and song competitions, or a team of their students helped an orphanage or a dog shelter in some way. In this case, thematic photographs are taken and captions are written under them, characterizing a particular moment that was important for the children, and especially for those whom they helped.
- The seemingly complex question of what to give a colleague for a wedding can be solved very simply. Again, a prepared piece of cardboard or wood board is taken, a frame is made, and banknotes rolled up in neat little bags are placed inside. Thin nails driven into the wood plate and connected to each other with a thread will help hold them in place - it will prevent the money collage from falling. If you take a sheet of thick cardboard, then buttons are used instead of nails.
A collage in the form of a drawn man with several heads of other colleagues who came to the wedding, and several hands in the form of the god Shiva, and a banknote can be attached to each drawn hand.
A money tree made of twigs with coins glued to it is the same collage. And if you also stick a photo on the coins, it will turn out original and interesting!
- The parents' birthday will be celebrated very warmly if a collage is presented with an expression of gratitude, gratitude to those people who gave life and protected and raised.
Photos of mother and father are taken both together and separately, and warm words are signed under them. It is possible to capture the entire life of loved ones in one small collage. You can attach a tag from the maternity hospital to the photo where the mother is holding the child, who gives the collage, with the baby’s details - the mother will be very pleased and this will greatly touch the woman. Pictures are attached next to the father’s photo that indicate his hobbies, but in no case are they intended to criticize some bad habits or somehow painfully “prick” the man on his birthday or anniversary.
- A photo collage for your son or daughter’s birthday can be very varied, including photos and magazine clippings, decorated with candies, coins, beads, small cars, and Kinder Surprise figurines.
A collage for your son will look very nice, where the photo of his face will be covered by a painted rocket, or cut out from a printed publication. The background will be dark, and on it there will be many sparkling stars painted with glow-in-the-dark varnish (fishermen also use this to coat their floats so they can see them in the dark). The result will be a beautiful collage postcard for your little astronaut.
Here you can create a slide show, video gift, as well as a musical card from your photos online
For your daughter’s birthday, you can go all out and “embroider” a sheet of whatman paper with beads, beads, draw a castle on the main background of the collage, where you can depict your daughter, attaching her photo to the body of the drawn princess, adding a crown to her head. Decorate the collage with bow clips, lace, drops of multi-colored varnish, sparkles, shells - and the heart of any girl will sing with happiness at the sight of such a gift!
If children have a birthday on the same day (twins are not uncommon in Russia, as well as in other countries), then in a photo collage you can combine frames from the moment the children were born to the present day. How they slept, ate, played, walked together - the collage will serve as a good example for them in the future, that brother and sister (or brothers/sisters) should, if possible, never separate, live in peace with each other and remember that they are connected by their parents, whom they should respect and love immensely.
Photo collages have both an active role - a gift, and a passive one, which, when viewed, can remind you of good deeds that need to be completed, of tenderness and love and the many feelings that surround people. In everyday life and work, feelings become dull, irritability and fatigue take their toll, but just one glance at a framed picture created by a devoted husband or wife, loving mother, faithful colleague, adored children or friends can return a whole sea of tenderness to the heart.
