the magic of collage

wonder | wander | women are paper people. We love notebooks, watercolour pads, stickers, and all sorts of stationery (we even know how to spell it properly). And like so many stationery lovers, we especially love to stick pieces of paper to other pieces of paper.

Journal spread inspired by Joseph Cornell

Collage is an art made up of different mediums, objects and forms assembled together to make an entirely new work. It's often called mixed media in painting, and "assemblage" when used to make 3-dimensional work like Joseph Cornell's boxes.

Untitled (Celestial Navigation, Night), Joseph Cornell, 1956-1958.

These days what we call "collage" in the journalling sphere is actually the art of decoupage, which specially uses paper ephemera like tickets or cutouts from magazines. Collage also relies more on found objects or random placement, whereas decoupage is more deliberate and often uses special materials like washi tape, beads and stickers. Still, it's more common nowadays to call this art "collage", so we will.

Travel journal with boarding pass pasted in, 2018

A whole industry has grown up around this art, similar to the mindful colouring books for adults and often for the same reason. Instead of cutting up valuable antique books, scrapbookers can now buy sticker books of botanical paintings, vintage illustrations and nature drawings.

Vintage illustration sticker and collage books

There are even videos specially recorded for the autosensory meridian response, or ASMR, where the sound is amplified to create a meditative experience. The simple sounds of fingernails rifling through stickers, pens writing on different kinds of paper, or pages turning become the main attraction, as much as or more than the artwork itself.

A few years ago we were able to get together for Christmas in spite of the pandemic, but we had to change our plans and stay home the whole time instead of going out or visiting family. Luckily we had lots of art materials, including some onionskin journals from Curious Goods that were perfect for collage.

Travel journal with stamps, magazine pictures and maps

There's something about assembling paper scraps and pieces that feels more immediate and instinctive than drawing a journal entry. On one hand it's quicker, yet the results can often express emotions better. We also love to combine drawing and collage.

Entry about Leonardo da Vinci and Marco Polo,
with stickers, wax seal, and ink on vellum and map pieces

Exploring this medium is like walking through a strange world, and many artists love to use it, from fathers of Cubism Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, to modern illustrators like Nick Bantock and even filmmakers like Terry Gilliam for Monty Python.

But new collage artists don't need to spend a lot of money trying it out - some torn-up magazine pages or photocopies, different textured or painted papers, scissors and glue, and a fertile imagination, and you can create your own magical little paper world.

Illustration using simple cutout shapes of pre-painted paper,
with gel pen drawings