Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that a final image may appear as a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realized today through image-editing software. source
Wikipedia
Gather Materials:
- an artist’s journal, unlined notebook, or piece of paper
- old book
- scissors
- printer
- computer, scanner, image editing software (optional)
- glue
Today’s Mark Making Exercise
Dadaists and Surrealists loved to use collage techniques to unlock new meaning in the world
Re-assembling Reality
Surrealist Collage
Max Ernst invented this method of pasting together fragments of given or found pictures. By using images that already had a similar ‘look’ (principally engravings illustrating novels, magazines and technical or commercial publications) he was able to create ‘illusionistic’ new pictures—bizarre, fantastic, dream-like, ironic or grotesque.
A Book of Surrealist Games by Alastair Brotchie
- Take an old book and find line drawings
- Either photocopy the images or for digital montage, scan them into your image editing software
- cut the images out and reassemble them
- glue them into your sketchbook
Reflections on the Exercise
- Fun to do but this didn’t really feel like a mark-making exercise as none of the marks are my own
- Idea! Next time I could do my own drawing in combination with the line drawings – a variation on the exquisite corpse exercise.
