Sometimes the desire to create in a certain medium is in your heart, but what to create is eluding you. I’ve found that playing around with something completely different than what I really want to do gets the creative ideas flowing. Last fall while going through phase two of my unplanned journey, I wanted to get back to creating and learning watercolor painting but did not know where to start. I bought a heavy duty mixed media sketchbook and started playing around with collage to inspire using magazine cutouts, fabric, string, gesso, acrylic paint, etc.

I made several collages over a few days and a couple of them inspired me to try recreating the collage image using watercolor. I am fascinated with textures that can be created in watercolor and these collages had lots of texture to try to imitate.

This collage was created using magazine cutouts, fabric, white pen, and textured background with gesso and acrylic paint.

And this is the watercolor version I painted:

In the next collage I sponge painted the background and used a stencil to add the vines. Then I added torn strips from magazine images and wove them together. The bird was created from magazine paper and a piece of embossed alcohol printed ink left over from this project. I used strings and lace to make a nest.

This collage had so much texture it challenged me to try to recreate it in watercolor. I even used the stencil with watercolor using a sponge. Here is my watercolor version:

In the next collage I used only magazine images that had various textures in neutral colors to make an interesting composition.

Instead of trying to recreate the textures in neutral colors, I went with color. It was fun to figure out ways to make similar textures with the watercolor.

I made a file filled with various images cut from magazines I can use to make collages to inspire other creative projects. You don’t have to recreate the collage you make though. Sometimes just making a collage will get the creative juices flowing and other ideas will pop into your head for other types of projects. What will you collage today?