Assignment 1: Modes of Composition

Abbie Vidler
Nov 30, 2023
5 min read

Brief

This assignment builds on the previous ‘Cut Ups’ exercise, but instead of using found material from newspapers or magazines, you will need to generate your own visual material.

First you will need to create the following ‘pool’ of images from coloured paper and your own drawings, designs or photographs:

A group of 5-10 background landscapes; for example a city street, country road, mountain-scape or seascape, famous landmarks or the surface of the moon.
A group of coloured shapes; like a yellow circle, green triangle, black square etc.
Images of 5-10 figures; these could be ordinary people, superheroes, characters from history or celebrities, depending on the sort of images you want to create.
A group of other random visual elements like objects (a bus, a building, dinner table, a bunch of flowers, etc).

Now photocopy or scan these at different scales and sizes so that you have several versions of each image.

Cut them into individual items with which to work. These will all then be separate pieces of paper or cut-outs that you can incorporate into a single image space.

Working with an A3 format, arrange some of your cut-outs to create five composite images. These could be either representational or fantastical, they could be single images or they could form a visual narrative. You could make your images physically by sticking them on sheets of paper or card or scan them and make digital collages. You can be implausible, satirical, political, comical, horrific or polemical, or all of these approaches together!

When you have completed your five images, upload them to your learning log.

Mood Board

Research

I wanted to research into collaging since my last exercise was a disaster, I wanted to learn the different ways that I can collage and create new illustrations.

A few tips I've picked up from researching is to consider a theme to help generate ideas, all while considering different materials/surfaces and different colours; having a theme can help the illustration have more cohesion.After choosing a theme, I should consider a composition, cut out a variety of subjects, colours, materials and plan where everything should go-- it helps to consider the rule of thirds as a basis of composition. 1

Researching a little deeper, I found out that it's important to cut inside the lines as it is the best to create a natural edge- making the illustration seamless from one another. Another way of creating a seamless illustration is repeating lines and forms, it also allows for the illustration to feel as if it's all meant to be together. 2

Hannah Hoch

Collage artist Hannah Hoch creates powerful political pieces, combining images and text from media; the type of pieces she takes are from a variety of mediums such as illustrated journals, fashion and trendy magazines. 3

Hoch takes a variety of recycled items to be used in her works resulting in abstract collaging with interesting compositions and fun contrast; her work was controversial and shocking but brought about a message that needed to be heard. 4

Photos

Collage Images (going from worst to best)

And their criticism.

This image is meant to be about male femininity, I used the rule of thirds to attempt this collage by having our eye start at the statue (top right) and lead down the arm at the other statue.

I used several images with some use of pen to add to this image, the final image is very lacking and the message doesn't follow through. Maybe if I had some more imagery of flowers and some more background then it could be better; the colours are also very distracting, it isn't coherent with one another.

For this image, I wanted to play with the images without a message since I was really struggling.

This collage is also a little lacking, if I could've I would have done the background image bigger- to composante for that I had to add paper shapes to extend the collage and add different components. I wanted to make the statue lean over the beach- watching below with an big deer to add another interesting element to lead the eye to the statue.

This collaged image was to show identity, a struggle with identity.

I used a cut-out from another image to frame this collaged image, showing a statue with a cut-out that perfectly lined up the face. I used a stick with a raindrop to flow down the statue with some trees to add texture. If only I had a solid black background behind (instead of the black marker behind, it could've made the collage more popping.

Next up is one to do with mental health and social pressures, for this I just tried to reach for things that felt right.

I wanted to capture my feelings of feeling discarded, insulted and shattered sel-confidence; I used an abandoned building and discarded glasses/mugs of tea, as well as showing shattered glass to show the meaning with a model showing the "person" (since I was afraid to use my own current face), then added a baby photo of me at the bottom.

To add to the background, I wrote every insult/comment/criticism down. The idea behind it was there, but the result was lacking.

Lastly, this one was purely for fun, space food.

The collage I was most happy with, I didn't have any meaning I just wanted to capture a space with food as the planets-- I added a human sitting just to play with the elements and add a little narrative; with white pen I added little stars to the background to make it believable that it could be space.

Evaluation

This assignment was one of the most hardest assignment/exercise that I have ever done, I found it very difficult to figure out what was best for the collage and to deliver a message/narrative. I really commend Hannah Hoch for her work, her work is a lot cleaner than mine and it flows together better.

Next time, I need to invest in an A3 printer since I was unable to do large collaging without having to extend in the background with pens/pencil/other imagery; I would also include more of the photos that I had and just try to make it make sense.

I added a variety of different techniques from my research into my actual work, like cutting on the inside of the lines, thinking of different textures to include and also including some meanings into some of my collaging.

I liked my last three, and I felt good putting my feelings into art in a new way; I'm not sure I would like to do collaging again unless I really knew what I was doing. Looking back, none of my collages resemble even a bit of my mood board, it looks like a big mess.

This first few exercises and assignments were interesting and different, it allowed me to explore something new. A great way to loosen up and get back into creatively thinking!