• 72 collage projects

Collage Art Ideas for Magazines, Torn Paper and Mixed Media

A collage project, the size of its base, the minutes to allow and the cutting or gluing move that makes it work.

Collage Art Ideas for Magazines, Torn Paper and Mixed Media

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  1. White on white: a collage of textures only20 cm square, 35 minutes. Tissue, doily, corrugated card, string: all white. Side light makes shadow the only colour.
  2. Fabric-scrap fields with inked hedges30 by 20 cm, 45 minutes. PVA holds cloth to card. Overlap scraps like fields from the air and ink hedges on the joins.
  3. Birch trunks torn from white paper on a dark ground20 by 30 cm, 25 minutes. Tear long strips and glue them upright. Black pencil bark marks go on last, across the trunk.

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All 72 collage projects

Magazine cut-outs 16

  • Bouquet of flowers cut from food photographs 20 by 30 cm, 45 minutes. Orange slices make marigolds, red cabbage makes roses. Stems are strips of green headline.
  • Circle cut from a portrait and turned a quarter 20 by 30 cm, 15 minutes. Trace a jar lid over one eye, cut it out, turn it 90 degrees and glue it back. Unsettling.
  • Cubomania: one photo cut into squares and shuffled 20 cm square, 30 minutes. Rule 4 cm squares on the back, cut, shuffle face down, and glue in the order you turn them.
  • Dinner plate served with things that are not food 20 cm square, 40 minutes. Sponge for cake, wool for noodles, buttons for peas. Texture sells it, so cut close.
  • Face built from five different magazine faces 20 by 30 cm, 45 minutes. Eyes, nose, mouth, hair and ears from five people. Match the head size, not the skin tone.
  • Fox head on a body in a business suit 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Fashion pages give the body, nature pages the head. Hide the join under a collar or scarf.
  • Giant hand holding a tiny city 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Scale is the joke. Hand from an advert, skyline from travel pages, fingers glued in front.
  • Pencil portrait with magazine eyes twice too big 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Draw the head first. Covers print faces largest, so cut the eyes there and let them overhang.
  • Profile head filled with whatever is on your mind 20 by 30 cm, 50 minutes. Trace your shadow for the outline. Fill it edge to edge with cut-outs, then trim to the line.
  • Rolling hills cut from hair adverts 30 by 20 cm, 40 minutes. Glossy hair reads as hills once the face is gone. Three shades, darkest at the front.
  • Room where the furniture is the wrong size 30 by 40 cm, 60 minutes. A teacup bigger than the sofa. Keep every floor line level so it still reads as one room.
  • Surreal postcard: a door standing open in a field 10 by 15 cm, 20 minutes. Two images only. Cut three sides of the door, fold it ajar, and slip sky behind the gap.
  • Thirty magazine eyes in a grid 20 by 30 cm, 60 minutes. Cut every eye as the same 4 by 3 cm rectangle. The grid composes; vary only the gaze.
  • Two photographs sliced into strips and interleaved 30 by 20 cm, 40 minutes. Cut both into 1 cm strips, keep the order, alternate them. The result is twice as wide.
  • Whale swimming above a city street 30 by 40 cm, 45 minutes. Cut the back cleanly and add a soft shadow strip on the road. The shadow makes it float.
  • Your name in cut-out headline letters 30 by 10 cm, 20 minutes. No two letters from one headline. Mix serif and sans, and let the baseline wobble.

Torn paper 14

  • Autumn tree with a crown of torn scraps 20 by 30 cm, 35 minutes. Cut the trunk from brown bag paper. The crown is thumbnail-sized tears in five warm colours.
  • Birch trunks torn from white paper on a dark ground 20 by 30 cm, 25 minutes. Tear long strips and glue them upright. Black pencil bark marks go on last, across the trunk.
  • Cat asleep on a windowsill, torn from one grey page 20 cm square, 25 minutes. A torn edge is already fur. Tear the body as one bean shape and add only ears and a tail.
  • Décollage: four glued layers torn back 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Glue four bright pages in a stack, let it dry, then rip through. You compose by taking away.
  • Desert dunes in six torn tans 30 by 20 cm, 25 minutes. Envelopes, bag paper and the face of a cardboard box give six tans free. Overlap from the top.
  • Fruit bowl with one torn paper per fruit 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. No scissors, no pencil. Tear each fruit as one piece and let the overlaps make the shadows.
  • Koi pond: torn orange fish under blue tissue 20 cm square, 35 minutes. Glue the fish first, then lay blue tissue over everything. Fish under two layers look deeper.
  • Night city reflected in torn-paper water 20 by 30 cm, 45 minutes. Cut the buildings crisp and tear their reflections. The top sits still; the bottom shimmers.
  • Snowy rooftops where the torn edge is the snow 30 by 20 cm, 35 minutes. Tear roofs from dark pages. One side of every tear shows a white edge: that side is the snow.
  • Storm sky torn from newspaper 30 by 20 cm, 30 minutes. From a step back, small print is mid grey and headlines are dark. Tear clouds from each.
  • Sunset sea torn from magazine oranges and blues 30 by 20 cm, 40 minutes. Tear long level strips. Repeat the orange ones, narrower, in the water below the horizon.
  • Tissue-paper poppies that overlap into deeper reds 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Tissue is translucent, so two layers darken. Brush thinned PVA over the top to flatten petals.
  • Torn-paper mountain range in five greys 30 by 20 cm, 30 minutes. A slow tear shows a white core along the edge, which reads as mist. Palest range at the back.
  • Torn-paper self-portrait in four flat tones 20 by 30 cm, 60 minutes. Squint at a photo until it breaks into four values. One paper per value, darkest pieces last.

Maps, tickets and keepsakes 15

  • Birthday page from one day's cards and wrapping 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Cut the best square from each card and a strip of each gift wrap. Pencil in who gave what.
  • Concert page: setlist, wristband and ticket 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Write the setlist from memory, mistakes included. Flatten the wristband under a book overnight.
  • Envelope page made from real post 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Stamps, postmarks, airmail borders and the patterned linings of bills. Cover any address.
  • Family recipe framed with its food labels 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Copy the recipe in the cook's handwriting if you can. Labels from the real tins go round it.
  • Garden year: seed packets round a planting plan 30 by 40 cm, 45 minutes. Empty packets round the edge, a hand-drawn bed plan inside, pressed petals where they grew.
  • Heart cut from the map of a home town 20 cm square, 20 minutes. Fold the map and cut half a heart on the fold so it comes out even. Centre your street.
  • Holiday told in sweet wrappers and sugar sachets 20 by 30 cm, 35 minutes. Foreign packaging dates a trip better than photos do. Flatten foil with the back of a spoon.
  • Old-map ocean with painted ships and sea monsters 30 by 20 cm, 50 minutes. Paint in gouache straight onto the sea. Monsters go where the map has nothing else to say.
  • Pet page: photo, tag rubbing, fur-coloured papers 20 cm square, 30 minutes. Rub a pencil over the name tag through thin paper. Tear a border in the colours of the coat.
  • Ticket-stub timeline of one year 50 by 20 cm, 45 minutes. Stubs in date order along a ruled line, one word under each. Receipt paper fades: photocopy it.
  • Travel page: one map, one ticket, one photograph 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Three things per trip, no more. Tilt the map, square the photo, and write the date by hand.
  • Vision board built round a single word 30 by 40 cm, 60 minutes. Glue the word in the middle in cut-out letters. Every image answers to it or goes back.
  • Vision board with nine pictures on a grid 50 by 70 cm, 90 minutes. One picture per goal, nine at most. A board of sixty pictures is a mood, not a plan.
  • Walk diary of pressed leaves with place labels 20 by 30 cm, 35 minutes. Press leaves in a heavy book until papery. Glue them flat and label where each one fell.
  • Walker's silhouette filled with the map of the walk 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Draw the figure reversed on the back of the map so no pencil shows. Mount it on plain card.

Colour, shape and silhouette 13

  • Bird silhouette filled with sky photographs 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Draw the bird on the back of a sky page and cut. Mount it on dark paper so the sky glows.
  • Black paper skyline over a collaged sunset 30 by 20 cm, 35 minutes. Strips of magazine orange, pink and violet first. The skyline is one piece of black, cut last.
  • Black, white and one red circle 20 by 30 cm, 25 minutes. Newsprint and black paper, then one red circle. Move it about before gluing; it runs the page.
  • Light-to-dark gradient in fifty paper squares 20 by 10 cm, 40 minutes. Cut 2 cm squares of one hue from many sources. Squint to order them: value shows best blurred.
  • One tree split down the middle, warm and cool 20 by 30 cm, 45 minutes. Left half from reds and yellows, right half from blues and greens. Match the values across.
  • Paint-chart mosaic of a single pear 20 cm square, 60 minutes. Cut sample cards into 1 cm tiles. Leave a hair of background between tiles to act as grout.
  • Painted-paper leaves cut freehand with scissors 30 by 40 cm, 60 minutes. Paint flat sheets and let them dry. Draw with the scissors, no pencil. Pin before you glue.
  • Single-colour collage: everything red you can find 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Sort the reds from warm to cool before gluing. Packaging, thread, paint charts, petals.
  • Six clashing patterns, one repeated shape 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Cut the same leaf or circle from six patterned papers. Repetition makes the clash look planned.
  • Stag silhouette cut out of a forest photograph 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Keep both pieces. The stag-shaped hole laid over white card is often stronger than the stag.
  • Stripes cut from security-envelope linings 20 cm square, 25 minutes. Bill envelopes hide dozens of blue and grey patterns inside. Ten strips make a quiet quilt.
  • Twelve-wedge colour wheel from magazine swatches 20 cm square, 45 minutes. Three primaries, three secondaries, six in between. Hunting a true blue-green takes longest.
  • White on white: a collage of textures only 20 cm square, 35 minutes. Tissue, doily, corrugated card, string: all white. Side light makes shadow the only colour.

Mixed media: paper plus paint, ink or thread 14

  • Acrylic portrait dressed in patterned paper 30 by 40 cm, 90 minutes. Paint the face and hands only. Clothes are wallpaper or gift wrap, with folds drawn in pencil.
  • Altered book: one spread cut, painted and pasted 20 by 30 cm, 60 minutes. Use a book past reading. Glue a few pages together for strength, cut a window, build inside.
  • Book pages under a thin watercolour wash 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Glue pages from a damaged book flat and let them dry. A thin wash leaves the print as texture.
  • Busy collage veiled in thin white paint 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Scrub thin white acrylic over a loud collage until it goes pale, then draw on top in charcoal.
  • Collage with a stitched line running through it 20 cm square, 40 minutes. Pin-prick holes 5 mm apart, then backstitch in embroidery thread. Tape the ends behind.
  • Corrugated-card relief of rooftops 30 by 20 cm, 50 minutes. Peel one face off packing card to show the ribs. Ribs run down each roof; paint it one colour.
  • Fabric-scrap fields with inked hedges 30 by 20 cm, 45 minutes. PVA holds cloth to card. Overlap scraps like fields from the air and ink hedges on the joins.
  • Frottage textures cut up into a landscape 20 by 30 cm, 45 minutes. Rub soft pencil over bark, coins and floorboards through thin paper. Cut fields from them.
  • Leaf prints over a newspaper ground 20 by 30 cm, 30 minutes. Brush paint on the veined side of a leaf, press it under scrap paper, peel. Newsprint ages it.
  • Masking-tape stripes lifted off a painted collage 20 by 30 cm, 40 minutes. Tape a dry collage, paint across, peel. Dab the tape on your sleeve first so it lifts clean.
  • Painted sky with collaged newsprint buildings 30 by 20 cm, 45 minutes. Paint a loose wet sky and let it dry. Buildings cut from newsprint and maps go on top, crisp.
  • Pen drawing over loose tissue-paper colour 20 by 30 cm, 35 minutes. Glue tissue roughly where the colour goes. Draw the subject over it in pen, off-register.
  • Shallow box assemblage of pocket finds 20 cm square, 60 minutes. Keys, buttons, shells and a toy glued in a box lid. It is collage in 3D: compose by shadow.
  • Sheet-music bird with painted wings 20 by 30 cm, 35 minutes. Body cut from old sheet music, wings in two watercolour strokes each. One ink dot for the eye.

How it works

Start from what is on the table: magazines, paper to tear, a drawer of tickets and maps, coloured scraps, or paint and thread. Each of these 72 collage art ideas gives its base size in centimetres, the minutes to allow and the one move that makes it work.

Read the full guide

Collage means glue, and that is the only rule

The word comes from the French coller, to glue. Anything flat that glue will hold is fair game, which is why mixed media art ideas so often start here: paper first, then paint, ink or thread on top. The Mixed media group holds 18 mixed media collage art ideas, from book pages under a watercolour wash to a line of backstitch. Two, the pet page and the leaf prints, are easy mixed media art ideas at 30 minutes each.

Tear or cut: the edge does the drawing

A cut edge is hard and a torn one is soft, and a good collage uses both. Printed paper shows a white core along one side of a tear, which reads as mist on a mountain range or snow on a roof. In the night city project the buildings are cut and their reflections are torn, so the top sits still and the bottom shimmers.

  • Move every piece about dry before you glue, then photograph the layout. Pieces shift once the glue stick comes out.
  • Glue thin magazine paper from the centre outward and press it under a clean scrap sheet, or it bubbles.
  • Collage journal ideas sit under Maps, tickets and keepsakes. For each thick page, trim a neighbouring leaf to a stub so the book shuts.

Questions and answers

What do I need to start a collage?

A base heavier than the paper going on it, a glue stick, scissors and a stack of free paper: magazines, junk mail, envelopes, packaging. The back of a cereal box makes a good 20 by 30 cm base. Thinned PVA suits tissue and fabric.

How do paint and paper share one picture?

Collage painting ideas settle who goes first. Either paper goes down and paint veils it, as in the busy collage veiled in thin white acrylic, or paint goes down and paper sits on top, as in the painted sky with newsprint buildings. For creative mixed media art ideas beyond paint, try frottage: pencil rubbings of bark and coins, cut up as fields.

How do collage, décollage and assemblage differ?

Collage glues pieces on. Décollage runs the other way: you glue layers in a stack and tear back through them, so the picture appears by taking away. Assemblage is collage in three dimensions, made from objects instead of flat paper. To carry on in paint, see abstract painting ideas.

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