Prompt = Green
A color, a collage, and a new approach
Hello, fellow art travelers - welcome to another week in collage!
I’m still working to make my studio more collage-friendly, but unfortunately, I’ve been delayed, but not for long. My new shelving unit should arrive on Monday. Yay! I hope to share a before-and-after photo shoot next week. If you enjoy room transformation posts, this is for you! In the meantime, partially organized, I decided to keep things simple and use the rainbow collection of scraps I created a couple of weeks ago…
… to inspire this week’s collage prompt.
It was my first attempt at a monochrome collage piece, and I approached the process of choosing materials quite differently than when I was looking for a more complex theme. Instead of exploring a particular subject or material, I was looking for a color - in a range of lovely hues. It made me think more about the kinds of prompts that can be used for creating art and set me on a path to organize them more categorically as I progress through this year of collage making.
GREEN - using an art element as collage inspiration
When looking for an entry point to a new collage session, inspiration may come from a wide range of places: materials, supplies, subjects, themes, art elements, design principles, song lyrics, poetry, and more! You can choose one or even a combination of several of these. The possibilities are innumerable.
Even looking at the simple prompt of “green” can inspire multiple approaches - using the color itself, a mood, or even a literary image or text as inspiration from which to create.
For this week, I’ve chosen the simplest approach: Create a monochrome piece using the color green (while playing with a bit of thread color contrast to accentuate my choice).
I was surprised by how much variation in materials I could use while still feeling like the piece had unity. Included in this collage are fragments of three vintage postcards, a vintage stamp, a found photograph of foliage, a button, machine stitches, and hand-embroidered embellishments.
I’m already thinking about my next collage color of choice.
But first, I’ll finish organizing my studio!
Jennifer
Want more inspiration? Check out this 1947 collage in mostly green by German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), “Hey Valentine” (Link to the art: The Art Institute of Chicago)
Also on my collage radar:
Collage Workshop taught by Judy Vogland at the Sitka Center - Otis, OR
2025 Recap
Collage Community
Skills Challenges & Learning Opportunities
Collage Prompts
#3 - GREEN (or your color of choice)