iPad Artist - Making Digital Collage

Making Digital Collage

Here I describe how to create a digital collage and digital collage papers in SketchClub.

It’s easy to make digital collage papers to use in making digital collages. I show you how to use SketchClub to make a small drawing and then use it to generate a pattern. Once you have your pattern, then you can add a background color and add texture to your digital collage paper.

Once we have some collage papers, I show you some easy basic steps for assembling a digital collage in SketchClub.

Let's make some collage papers! Open SketchClub and create a new sketch. I frequently choose a custom size and use a width of 3300 pixels and a height of 4200 pixels.

For this example I’ll use a pen. Open the brush menu and select Pen.

Now touch the icon on the toolbar at the top of the screen that looks like three sliders, and select “Calligraphy Pen” (or any other pen). You can choose a size and opacity here or at the stripe at the bottom of the screen.

To show you a simple example, I drew these lines.

Now touch the Move tool. It is the icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen that looks like a cross.

Now a settings icon appears at the bottom right corner of the screen. Touch it.

Now touch the “Tiled” switch to turn it on.

You’ll see your pattern! Now hit Done at the top right corner of the screen.

You’re not done yet! Now you can use your fingers to resize, reposition and rotate your pattern. Here I’ve resized my pattern to make the individual elements smaller. You can see that I automatically got a lot more tiles to fit on the screen. Now hit Done in the top right corner of the screen.

Now touch the Layer icon in the top left corner of the screen (it looks like two layers) and select the layer just below the layer you were working on. Touch “Color Fill”.

A color wheel pops up. Select a color, then touch the left-pointing arrow at the top of the color wheel.

I chose a pink color.

Sometimes I like to add a little bit of texture to my digital collage papers. To do this, I open the layers menu and select the layer just above the pattern layer.

Open the brush menu and Select Brush.

Now touch the icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen that looks like three little sliders to choose a brush type. I selected the Dust brush at the largest size and medium opacity.

I selected a gray color for the brush.

I painted with the brush all over the layer. I changed the layer blending mode to Screen. This created a subtle texture over the pattern. It's hard to see it here, but you can bring it out, for example, if you process the image in iColorama later.

I saved the file to my camera roll. Often I’ll go back to the bottom layer and fill it with a different color and save that, to get the same pattern in a different color. I’ll do this in several different colors. If my pattern has a color, I’ll also try changing the color of the pattern layer too.

Here is another example. I drew these marks with a yellow pen.

And here’s the pattern.

Here I added a background color using Color Fill.

Here I changed the background color using Color Fill. Next we will change the color of the pen strokes. In the Layers menu, select the pattern layer. Then touch the Magic Wand.

A Color Adjustment screen should come up. If not, touch the downward pointing arrow at the top of the screen, and choose Color Adjustment from the drop down menu that comes up.

Here is the new color.

Now let’s make another pattern using the Vector tool. Select the Vector tool from the tools menu. Then touch the squiggly line in the center of the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Now choose the circle from the box that pops up.

Now when you use the Vector tool, you will make circles, like I did here.

I tiled a pattern, as we did before.

Here is another version after adjusting the color on both the pattern layer and the background color layer.

Now let’s make another pattern, this time, choose the circle, square and triangle alternately and make a simple pattern. Here I switched colors between making each shape.

And here is the result of tiling the pattern.

Here are some other collage papers I made this way.

Now let's make a digital collage! Once you’ve made some collage papers, you can make shapes with them. Import one into a layer, then erase down to your shape using any tool in erase mode. For example I often use the vector tool in erase mode. Here, I’ve imported a collage paper onto a layer. Now I select the Vector tool and put it into Erase mode.

Now I start erasing by using the Vector tool to select areas I want to erase.

I continue erasing with the Vector tool. If I make a mistake, I undo and try again.

I continue erasing with the Vector tool.

Now on a new layer just above the previous layer, I import another collage paper. I reduce the layer opacity so that I can see the layer underneath, so I know where I want to erase. I use the Vector tool in Erase mode to start erasing.Now on a new layer just above the previous layer, I import another collage paper. I reduce the layer opacity so that I can see the layer underneath, so I know where I want to erase. I use the Vector tool in Erase mode to start erasing.

I continue erasing with the Vector tool.

I increase the layer opacity to 100%.

I continued working in this way. I added a new background layer and imported another digital collage paper onto it. I added a new layer at the top of the layer stack, and I painted a border using a hard round brush. Then I added a new layer above that, changed its blending mode to “on”, and imported another digital collage paper onto it, so that the border is a pattern. On new layers, I painted features and suggestions of clothing details using the Vector tool and a pen.

I enhanced the piece by applying iColorama’s Adjust/Tonelab preset 5.

We saw above how I used the “on” blending mode. This comes in handy if you’d rather make a positive shape than create shapes by erasing. First make a shape on its own layer using the vector tool (or any other tool). Then on a layer immediately above the shape, import a pattern. Then change the blending mode of the pattern layer to “on”. Let’s try it! First, let’s put the Vector tool back into its normal mode, called “Over”.

Now I used the Vector tool to start making a shape.

I continue using the Vector tool to create the shape. Then I put the Vector tool into Erase mode and erase an area to represent an eye.

Now I create a new layer immediately above this shape layer, and I change the layer blending mode to “On”.

Now I import a collage paper onto this new layer. Notice how the new pattern conforms exactly to the underlying shape!

On a new layer above the other layers, I used the Vector tool to make a shape for her hair.

I created a new layer just above the previous layer, and changed its blending mode to “On”. Then I imported another digital collage paper onto it.

Now I selected the layer with the black hair shape on it, and I used the Vector tool in erase mode to edit the shape, so it would look better with the pattern. Because the pattern is on an “On” layer immediately above, it automatically adjusts to match the changes I make on this layer.

I finished the piece by adding another collage paper as background, I added some color layers in Multiply mode or Overlay mode, one just above the face layer and one just above the hair layer, to modify the colors. Then on a new layer at the top of the layer stack, I used a hard round brush to paint a border. I also used the Vector tool on a new layer to make the necklace.

I should note here that you can have only one “On” layer for any given layer. You can add more “On” layers above that, but they will not “crop” properly. So I needed a workaround to tint the hair, as I did in the example. Here is the workaround: I selected the layer with the black and white pattern that is used to the hair. That layer was in “On” mode just above the layer with the black hair shape. In the layer menu, I selected Merge Down, which merged the pattern layer and the black hair shape layer into a single layer. Then I could add a new layer above the merged layer and fill it with orange, and change its blending mode to “On”. There are other apps, such as Procreate, where you can have more than one Alpha Lock layer (similar to On) for a given layer, but SketchClub is so much easier than any other app that iced tried for making digital collages that it’s with having to make a workaround or two now and then. I used the same workaround for tinting the face.

Using either or both of these shape-making methods, you can build up many layers of shapes to make an interesting collage! Have fun!

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