Create a landscape collage

 

Mixed paper collage of a mountain landscape against a yellow background

 

You’ll have fun playing with colours and shapes in this art project but be warned, you’ll have to factor in some time to leave different elements to dry. It may not be quick, but the final result is definitely worth the wait!

 

You will need

  • Scraps of coloured paper
  • Thick paper or card
  • Paints
  • Paintbrush
  • An A4 piece of paper
  • PVA Glue
  • Scissors (optional)

Assorted coloured tissue papers

 

1. Start by collecting any colourful scraps of paper you might like to work with e.g. tissue paper, wrapping paper, magazines

 

2. It’s also fun to create your own paper elements for this project using a thick piece of paper, paints and water.

 

Creating colourful paper with water and paint

 

3. Be as creative as you can be, mixing colours and using the water to help them flow across the paper until you’ve covered it entirely. You may even want to experiment to see what additional effects you can create e.g sprinkling salt onto the wet paint.

 

4. Leave your newly painted paper to dry completely.

 

Painted paper ripped to create the shape of mountain peaks

 

5. Once the painted paper is dry start to carefully tear it into jagged shapes, trying to leave the white tear marks visible for extra drama. These will form the mountain peaks in your finished collage.

 

Paper shapes arranged to form a mountain range

 

6. Take your A4 paper and play around with how you’d like to position your mountains on the paper, where you will layer them etc. At this stage, do not glue anything down.

 

7. Turn your attention to the sky and land in front of the mountain, working out how you’d like to position the coloured scraps of paper you collected.

 

Using smaller pieces of colourful paper to collage sky and land

 

8. Working methodically, tear off small pieces of coloured paper and glue them to your piece. We like to also put some more glue on top of the pieces to smooth them down.

 

Bringing together the mountains with the background

 

9. Once you’re happy with the colourful areas, return your mountains to the paper and stick them down. You will probably want to add some additional coloured scraps around the bottom to better blend the land into the mountains.

 

10. We finished by trimming the entire picture but you may like to leave it more uneven.