Books for beginners.

[Chatziandreou Maria]

Hi!  I ' m new here in your interesting group. I would appreciate if you could recomμend me a good book for someone who wants to begin making collages. 

[Stephen Mead]

I don't think you need a book.  Your talent makes its own language!

[Chatziandreou Maria]

Stephen thanks a lot! Everything I do is by following my instinct or by searching the net. But don't you think it would be better for someone to learn more about techniques and materials from books or by having some lessons?

Stephen Mead said:

I don't think you need a book.  Your talent makes its own language!

[Stephen Mead]

No, I don't think it would hurt.  I was reacting instinctively to your images and enjoying their breadth.  Maybe just by doing a Google search you can find some good titles.  I know there are tons of talented individuals on this site with expertise in various methods of collage who I hope weigh in on this discussion and recommend some title/advice/techniques.

[Chatziandreou Maria]

Thanks again Stephen.  I see here a lot of talented artists and I' m reading everything in the forum.  Ι feel a little bit like Alice in the Wonderland with all these amazing pieces of art around me. So any advice it is very desirable for me.

[Amalia Melis]

hello Maria, I just saw your contact name, I am located in Athens Greece too and I make assemblages. amalia

[ken coleman]

From what I've seen (and I have a stack of collage books) the "how to" books are all pretty much the same.  However, here are a couple that you might consider:

 

Collage Techniques by  Gerald Brommer. Watson-Guptill Publications. 1994.

Collage Discovery Workshop by Claudine Hellmuth. North Light Books. 2003.

 

Acrylic Solutions: Exploring Mixed Media layer By Layer by Cozen and Prichard.  North Light Books. 2013.

 

Collage: The Making Of Modern Art by Brandon Taylor. Thames & Hudson. 2004.
This is in my opinion the best, maybe the only, solid academic work on the history of collage.

 

 

[Chatziandreou Maria]

Thanks a lotKen. I ' ll try to find some of them.

ken coleman said:

From what I've seen (and I have a stack of collage books) the "how to" books are all pretty much the same.  However, here are a couple that you might consider:

 

Collage Techniques by  Gerald Brommer. Watson-Guptill Publications. 1994.

Collage Discovery Workshop by Claudine Hellmuth. North Light Books. 2003.

 

Acrylic Solutions: Exploring Mixed Media layer By Layer by Cozen and Prichard.  North Light Books. 2013.

 

Collage: The Making Of Modern Art by Brandon Taylor. Thames & Hudson. 2004.
This is in my opinion the best, maybe the only, solid academic work on the history of collage.

 

 

[Chatziandreou Maria]

Hi Amalia. I saw your assemlages and I liked them a lot.

Amalia Melis said:

hello Maria, I just saw your contact name, I am located in Athens Greece too and I make assemblages. amalia

[Peter Hausamann]

I find books very helpful to realize that experimentation is the key to understanding what works for you and what does not. Sometimes I come across materials that are not exactly compatible to my adhesives. This forces me to use a different material, or adhesive, or approach to adhering it to the collage. Quite often I play with certain materials on scrap boards to see what works best.

But back to books. I really enjoyed reading these two:

John and Joan Digby. 1985. The Collage Handbook. New York, Thames and Hudson Inc.

 Michael David Brown. 1998. Realistic Collage Step by Step. Cincinnati, North Light Books. ISBN 0-89134-819-0 (hardcover)

[Chatziandreou Maria]

Peter thanks a lot for the information. I agree with you that experimentation is the key ,we only learn and take inspiration from others' works but we have to take it a step further!

[Geoffrey Ellis Aronson]

I find the inspiration from others. My mentor is Hannah Hoch and whenever I go through my monograph of her work, I end up doing better work. I believe that to be the most important thing, is to have other artists to show us the light of possibilities.

The book I use for technique is COLLAGE JOURNEYS by jane davies. It's pretty basic.My only complaint was that she didn't explain any but one method for image transfers, which was an issue paramount to me. Otherwise I recommend it. Amazon has several technique books and they are rated.

[Antonio Gonzalez-Nunez]

Dear friend: I have being reading a lot of books about collage but there are two that has being very useful :

Collage Techniques by Gerald Brommer from Watson-Guptill  (As a consulting book, very good)

Collage Discovery Worshop by Claudine Hellmuth from North Light Books ( a lot of recipes for different techniques). They are my two favorites.

Hope you find your way in this fascinating trip to Collage. Best wishes, Antonio