Feelings Collage

“Feelings”

Collage

Project overview:

A “feeling” collage is a project designed to help you get in touch with and express how you are feeling. It gets the feeling out. 

The example above is a photo collage created by a student in my class. He used the boot to represent himself, the cross and roses represent the death of someone close to him, and were symbolic of the funeral. He was expressing his grief in this image. These images started as digital photos and were collage in Photoshop. 

 

 I created this collage using images cut from magazines that I glued onto a piece of paper. The images are symbolic representations of me.

 

Materials:

Paper                           Scissors or exacto knife                                           

Glue stick                    Magazines to cut images from

2 manilla folders

                      

Instructions:

1.    Select a feeling you are experiencing and want to understand better, or simply express.

2.    Take a few minutes to close your eyes and FEEL the feeling you want to express. Do this until you have the feeling established firmly.

3.    Begin looking through the magazines for images. Don’t over think the process. When you see an image that jumps out at you, cut it out. Stay focused on your feeling.

  (note- You will want some full page size images for a background and other images for subjects.)

4.    Label your manilla folders, “Objects” on one and “Backgrounds” on the other.

5.    After you have lots of images and some full page size images, decide which images are “subjects” and which ones are “backgrounds”. Put them into their respective folders.

6.    Begin cutting out your “object” images carefully. Exacto knives work great for cutting highly detailed images.

7.    After you have your “objects” cut out, select some “background” images and position “object” images on top of the background. Don’t glue yet! You will want to experiment with the layout, using different images, until you find the best combination.

8.    Once you are happy with your layout, begin gluing. It only takes a small amount of glue.

9.    After you finish gluing your collage, you can trim the edges if needed.

CONGRATULATIONS!

          You now have a completed collage. You can use your collage as a focal point while meditating on your feeling, or hang it some place private as a reminder that you have successfully processed your feeling.

          More importantly with this project, the value is in the PROCESS of expressing your feeling and moving through it.

           

Variations:

          Digital photos, collaged in Photoshop using layers, is a fun option!

          You can collage images and words to support an affirmation you use.

Goals you are working on make great themes for collage.

Your passion makes a great theme for a collage!

Collage is an excellent process to create a vision board. (Vision boards are a collection of images that represent what you want, like a new car, your dream house, health, wealth, etc. )

Have fun and play with the process! Use your creativity and see what other awesome ideas you come up with! The images only need to be meaningful to you. Don’t worry about whether or not anyone else “gets it."