Collage Prompt: Collections
Prompt #20
Happy Collage Friday!
Welcome to Prompt #20!
(and the continuation of a series of prompts started in 20251)
Over the next few weeks, I’m continuing to share new little collage prompts before I take a 6-week summer break to start Grad School. I hope they give you some fun new bite-sized ideas to bring into your own collage process. I will return in August with new prompts and posts. In the meantime, I hope you find a little inspiration here in Collage O to keep you collaging all summer long.
Prompt = Collections
I am fascinated by the inclination to collect. My mother was2 what I would call an “accidental” collector. Part raven (picking up any shiny object she found on a walk) and part daughter of circumstance - raised by parents who had one child just before the great depression and their second during World War II. Her parents knew the benefit of thriftiness and saved anything of use (I remember finding a huge cupboard stuffed full of egg cartons and used plastic baggies when we cleaned out their house). They also tended their “victory garden”3 and minded their neighbors. My grandfather, a Physics teacher and High School Principal, operated an electronics repair shop during much of this time to keep his community informed while making use of the available materials, as many “…everyday items [during the war] were impacted by rationing… such as shoes, undergarments, and even toys….. Those rationed items that people could obtain were treated with care as to preserve them….Waste was considered unpatriotic, and measures were taken to ensure that any potentially useful material was saved for the war effort.”4
As I’ve mentioned before, my mother’s house followed a similar pattern. She had collections of wicker baskets, vintage tins, buttons, scissors (why?), teddy bears, dolls (terrifying!), fabrics, ribbons, jars of pennies, pins, and thumbtacks, and books full of vintage stamps.
For today’s “Collections” prompt, I’m focused on those vintage stamps. You may also want to consider maps, fabric patterns, ledgers, or any other paper ephemera that you are prepared to let go of in the art-making process.
Vintage Stamps
If you have a vintage stamp collection you want to use in your art, you may first want to consider whether any of the stamps are of significant value: The Value of Stamp Collections (americancollectors.com). Admittedly, I only check for the top 4 valued stamps (mentioned in the American Collectors article) before collaging them into my art: The Inverted Jenny, Benjamin Franklin Early Releases, Hawaiian Missionary Stamps, and the very rare British Guiana 1C Magenta Stamps.
For today’s vintage stamp “collections” collage prompt, I decided to share my process for this 16x20 inch piece on hardboard that I recently completed.
However, I also love to use one or two stamps in many of my mini-collages…
I love a stamp’s allusion to the written word, connecting through community, and the acceptance of art, design, and history into everyday objects, such as a small, unassuming stamp. It is one reason that I still love to send postcards and letters to family and friends, and why I recently started offering my newsletter in a quarterly analog version (next edition coming out in June)!
Collaged Art Poppies
For my larger Poppy art, however, I started by carefully mostly covering an entire substrate with vintage stamps (plus a few decorative paper and map scraps).
I then mapped out my foreground using watercolor ground and pencil markings.
Lastly, I added watercolor to the flowers and foliage, and a mix of oil paint and wax (for translucency) to the background, then added a little turquoise and grey oil paint to “plant” the foliage into the ground.
I’ll finish this piece with a coat of varnish and then cold wax. This will preserve the piece as well as even out the surface (due to its varying materials). The same effects, however, could be achieved with your favorite paint supplies. The most difficult part is simply preparing the collaged surface to accept paint, which can be done with light sanding, clear gesso, watercolor ground, and/or various translucent mediums appropriate for your type of paint.
FYI - I’m excited to be teaching a class in Newport, Oregon this Fall which will cover these techniques! There are still a few slots available if you want to join in the fun.
After years of purposely trying not to accumulate “things”, funnily enough, I may have become my mother’s daughter after all - with bins of stamps, jars of buttons, and an eager eye for anything interesting found while walking in my neighborhood or along a beach. Thankfully, my obsession with collage is giving me the opportunity to consider these collections in a new light - as materials for a creative process that attempts to tread lightly on our precious planet. It is also a gentle reminder, for as much as I am different from my family, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all…
Happy collaging,
Jennifer
Collage Friday History
For 2026, I’m continuing to highlight some past favorite Collage O posts for those of you who may be new to the circle. This week, I’m sharing a recap of my 2025 prompts. I look forward to adding more prompts over the next 6 weeks!
2025 Recap
Collage Prompts
I say “was” about my mother in that she no longer collects due to living with dementia in a care facility. I am grateful that part of my upcoming graduate studies will be near where she now lives and I can visit her more frequently after moving her a few years ago to be closer to other family members.
Rationing on the Homefront, Oct. 18, 2024, PacificWarMuseum.org
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