Artistic Mixed-media Collages

“Collage is much more than cutting and pasting — it’s a way to make sense of your world, thoughts, and emotions” says illustrator and collage artist, Petra Zehner. She experiments with different styles, media, time periods, and techniques to create unique pieces. She specializes in collage art for different projects and is the creative director and founder of Paris Collage Collective, which is a worldwide community that sets regular creative challenges to connect local and global artists.

In this course, she teaches you how to create digital mixed-media collages that seamlessly combine traditional materials and tools with digital illustration in Photoshop. Explore the differences and possibilities of crafting digitally with analog elements. Learn to collect, mix, match, and make things your own.

Meet illustrator, collage artist, and your teacher for the course, Petra Zehner. Hear how she came to specialize in her field, and how her life and background have shaped her artistic development. She also shares the artists who inspire her and an insight into her philosophy on collage.

Get an introduction to digital mixed-media collage, then explore the various analog and digital tools used throughout the course, from Photoshop features to glue. Petra then guides you through using materials for your collages that have copyright restrictions, as well as where to find those that are copyright free. Next, see how to collect and organize your materials in a digital library, including both traditional and digital pieces.

Dive into the creation of your portrait. Choose the photograph for the central element for your piece, then Petra teaches you how to retouch it in Photoshop. Explore materials to create the background, such as the pages of old books, and see how to establish context. Then, see how to manipulate it digitally with editing tools and techniques. Next, play around with different color combinations as you experiment with composition, before building up your collage further with added visual elements.

Discover the concept of ‘breaking the frame’ by not being limited to a traditional canvas. Explore ways you can develop and expand on your portrait to tell a visual story by adding more analog elements. Learn about color schemes, as well as duplicating, scaling, and inverting components. Finalize your composition and collage as Petra shows some finishing touches.