Collaborative Collage

18" x 24" --- acrylic, brown paper, paint pens on poster paper

This project definitely had a lot of limitations because we had to do things in a certain order rather than work in an order that might make more sense in someone's head. For instance, starting with the image limits you a lot because you have to do the next steps surrounding that image and what it is. Next, by making a block of color and making lines limits a lot of what you can do because when you get it back, you have to work around these blocks and lines. Of course, you can choose to cover it all up and start fresh, but by working in an order that gives you tough things to work with, you really limit yourself. However, you can also see this as an opportunity to expand your creativity because by figuring out what to do with these hard to work with features, you need to think outside the box and think almost strategically about what you are doing. It forces you to work outside of what might be considered your comfort zone, which is always a good thing because it helps you think in different directions.  

Working in conjunction with others ideas forced me to move out of my comfort zone with my subject matter and how I planned out my piece. By having people work on my piece before me, I then got it back and then was forced to create a theme based on what was created. It was definitely difficult to work with these pieces, but I think it adds an elevated element of interest to it because it has so many people’s different works on it. It forced me to brainstorm ways to tie in the different elements on my paper, and especially on such a big scale. People chose to work on a small corner of mine which was amazing, but I then had to think of a way to fill the space while still incorporating others’ creative decisions which was a challenge, but I think it resulted in a really cool piece. 

I don’t know if I would do many collage type projects in the future, although it is very fun, it is just not my preferred style of art. However, it did force me to make many different creative decisions and go in many different directions which I feel expanded my creative capabilities. It was a cool experience to work with other people’s creative choices as well, which I feel was very useful in having me really think of the best choices to make and the best choices to tie in all of the different elements. Overall, I really like where it went and thought it was a really cool experience.