How to make your own tiny collage book

This month I made a book full of collages. The first sketchbook I’ve finished in who knows how long. 

After inktober, I was feeling nostalgic from school art lessons. I missed making to learn and having someone else set me challenges. Every term’s project at school started with an inspiration gathering exercise that always included a good week of collaging. We would spend hours searching through magazines and draws of art cast offs to find hidden gems that sparked some joy. Then we’d assemble them into a beginning to an adventure. 

I feel like I’m back on the start of a journey with my art, so I went back to those pages of pasting to ground me. 

I also wanted something that would feel like pressure free making in a different way to inktober. That exercise had been all about the mechanics of drawing, now I wanted something that was all about feeding the magpie in me and having fun. My favourite part of any piece is the deciding what to make. 

Cutting up all of our discarded Big Issues and any other scrap paper, washi tape and flat paraphernalia I could find really was a throw back. I think I spent as long finding good bits of pattern and texture as I did trying to pull them together as something coherent on a page. 

I ended up making what felt like alternative worlds and spaces. I think I was inspired by Emma Carlisle’s sketchbook club and all the tiny zines Austin Kleon made at the start of lockdown. They were abstract combinations to escape into rather than the literal mood boards I created when I was sixteen. That said they still got me thinking. The act of finding corners of beauty and interest and then collaging them into something new made me reflect on the compositions I choose, the contrast in what I make, texture and perhaps most surprisingly and importantly what I want to say with what I make. These pieces said nothing directly and got me trying to fill in all of the blanks.

Making a collage book is incredibly intuitive, but these are the steps I took if you want to take an afternoon to make and make meaning for yourself.

Make your own collage book

1. Gather up your materials.

These can be anything flat enough to stick down. Any old magazines or newspapers you have can be a great start, but if you don’t have any or many of those you can turn to packaging, tape, fabric, leaves, postcards, photos. Like I said, make a pile of anything flat enough to stick down.

2. Cut anything that you like, be a magpie.

You can either go with a theme or question in mind as you leaf through, like we did at school, or just go with an open mind and eye. As you look through try to pull out parts of images rather than full pictures. I often find it can help to hold whatever you’re looking at upside down to try to find something new in it. I cut out my pieces using a scalpel and a cutting board, but you can’t go wrong with scissors and ripped edges can offer some lovely softer texture. Try to have a mix of shapes and sizes by the end. If you’re collecting over a longer period of time, I highly recommend keeping bits in an envelope – you don’t want to lose your treasures!

3. Piece together, play on a page.

When you’ve got an envelope full of good stuff, it’s time to put it together. I’d recommend tipping everything out so you can see it all at once. Pick up something you like then try combining it with other pieces in a range of combinations until you find something that sparks some joy. I used a little muji notebook I already had in my draw as a canvas, but if you don’t have a spare notebook you can make a tiny one using these instructions.

4. Stick down and add any flourishes.

After moving your elements around, hopefully you find something you like and you want to capture. So, the only thing to do is to stick it down using an appropriate glue (pritt stick works for most things) and add any hand drawn flourishes. So many of my collages felt like worlds so I added a few trees and houses as well as some pops of colour that I couldn’t find in my paper stash.

5. Fill your book and come back to it when you’re feeling stuck.

Natalie