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Collage Workshops General

ESL Students’ Collages to Supplement a Textbook Chapter on Art for All!

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General Photography

Scarborough Bluffs Beach

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General Photography

Summer Images

Liberty, Missouri
Front Step of a Home in Hermann, Missouri
Liberty, Missouri
Liberty, Missouri
Mural on the Ceiling of Patron-Overflow Bus,
Southwest Diner, Saint Louis
Bus Mural, Southwest Diner
Daniel Boone Home Historic Site
Blue-tailed Skink at Daniel Boone Home
Streaming into Detroit at Dawn on the Greyhound Bus
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General Photography

Guild Park, Beach, and Wetlands Boardwalk

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General Photography Poems and Prose Poems

Haiku for the Caution Tape at Birchmount and Gatineau Trail

Caution requested

at sober pavement’s edge.

Wind resists, dances.

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General Photography

Ohio Road Trip

Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Near the highway
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General Photography

Port Union Waterfront Park

Found Beach Sculpture
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Artwork General

Ink Drip Patchwork Collage

Ink Drip Patchwork (Stage One), Catherine Raine 2019

To create this collage, I repeatedly placed an ink-loaded paintbrush at various points at the top of the canvas and let the rivulets of ink find their own pathways down. After the vertical lines dried, I turned the canvas and repeated the process in order to create the intersecting horizontal lines.

Ink Drip Patchwork (Completed Collage), Catherine Raine 2019

I liked how the ink lines formed folksy quilt-like boxes, so I added colored papers to highlight the patchwork shapes.

Ink Drip Patchwork, Catherine Raine 2019

The spontaneous blending of the streams of ink as they met each other motivated me to select transparent papers for the collage. Not wanting to cover the ink tracks, I chose papers that would both show off and interact with the colors resting underneath them.

Detail from Ink Drip Patchwork, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Ink Drip Patchwork, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Ink Drip Patchwork, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Ink Drip Patchwork, Catherine Raine 2019

I hope you enjoyed Ink Drip Patchwork! I highly recommend trying this fun art process.

Categories
Collage Workshops General

Collages by International Students in a Leadership Course

Complete gallery
An engineering student envisions her future and encourages a visit to the universe.
Celebrating Canada’s multiculturalism — “Be Yourself”
“La Vie Est Belle” —
Vision of owning a flower shop in the future
“I want to have a house in the quiet countryside.”
For Freedom
“This collage shows my interest in art.”
“The collage is about my visit to Canada.”
“The penguin wishes he could fly like other birds.”
Be Happy!
“Botany is one of my interests.”
Detail from “To Infinity and Beyond”
“Where Are You Going? To Infinity and Beyond!”
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General Photography

Sunrise at East Point Park, Scarborough

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General Photography

Spring Lake, Dwight Ontario

Early Morning Mist
Sunset
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General Photography

Photographic Distractions While Weeding the Garden

Shadow Doodle
Categories
Collage Workshops General

Collage Workshops Spark Language Expression

When I came to Canada, I had to start again at the bottom. I struggled and had a lot of stress. The stairs show my difficult climb back up to success.(Geraldine, workshop participant, 2015)

     Since 2013, I have led more than thirty collage sessions, and each one has testified to the power of art to nudge emotions, memories, and personal wisdom to the surface. Bridging visual and linguistic boundaries, collage creates a world of meaning in which a yoga pose, a set of stairs, and a gold coin symbolize an immigrant’s struggle to regain lost ground. As an artist and ESL educator, I appreciate collage’s unique ability to sound the depths and reveal insights that elude verbal access, thus providing a perceptive gift that builds second-language fluency and morale. Having witnessed the alchemic energy that transforms ordinary paper and glue into artistic creations, I would like to share my collage-teaching experience with a wider audience. To showcase the learning potential of this versatile modality, I will focus on the process of workshop preparation, execution, and closing harvest.

Whether conducting a session with my own students or visiting the ESL classes of colleagues, I am delighted to promote collage as an educational tool. To harmonize proposed collage lessons with the curriculum, they are usually given a theme connected to relevant textbook chapters, and some typical ones have included Relaxation, Health, Nature Conservation, Families, and Personality Traits. The artwork that results from these themed sessions provides meaningful material for discussion and written reflection, which instructors often incorporate into assigned presentations or paragraphs.

With a theme and a firm date established, workshop preparations start with a dive into several thick folders from my picture collection (an entity that has taken on voluminous dimensions of its own). As I search for images that can be tailored to the theme, I celebrate the latent promise of diverse colors, textures, shapes, and lines found in magazines, leaflets, wrapping paper, hand-made paper, tissue paper, fancy bags, and commercial packaging. While sorting through the folders, I often contemplate the artistic destiny of items such as a page from a Rumi calendar or a stamp from an old postcard. After the image folders have been customized for a particular class, I gather the requisite backings, scissors, glue, and embellishments, sometimes making flying visits to the dollar store if necessary. 

When the day of the session arrives, I shoulder two large bags full of materials and make it my mission to fire up enthusiasm for art, an attitude that lays the foundation for a lively and productive session. Upon arrival at the designated classroom, I ask for a show of hands to gauge how many participants have tried collage before. If the term is unfamiliar, I show them a sample collage and call attention to the French origins of the word (coller, to glue) while flourishing a glue stick in the air. Then I explain that collage is a process in which different pieces of paper are arranged and glued to a backing to create a new piece of art.

Before the actual collage-making begins, I assure the class that drawing skills are not a prerequisite. Hoping to alleviate possible anxiety over creative deficiencies, I strive to foster a non-judgmental learning environment, for I want participants to feel free to take a playful approach to the activity, setting aside worries about making mistakes. Thankful for the respite from critical evaluation, many students find that cutting, tearing, and pasting can relieve the stress of testing, grades, and error-correction, all of which permeate second-language study in college. Moreover, a relaxed approach gives participants the chance to defy negative beliefs such as “I am not creative” and let their imagination surprise them.

To avoid slowing the session’s momentum with overly-detailed instructions about technique, I prefer to pass around several examples of previous students’ artwork and let these exemplars provide inspiration. After the samples have made their rounds, I ask each person what colour of backing they would like and supply the tables with scissors and glue. Then it is time to release multitudes of papers from their orderly folders into gloriously messy piles. As colourful items spill out with abandon, eager hands pounce on individual images that clamour to be chosen. When I see how swiftly the learners become engrossed in gathering their images and committing to a mental picture of what they want to create, it makes me happy.

Collage workshop in progress, 2015

     Once the session is in full flow and the students completely immersed, it is fun to intensify the joyfully-strewn chaos of materials by adding alphabet stickers, stencils, markers, fake jewels, ribbons, and tissue paper to the mix. With student-selected music playing in the background, the room hums with kinetic engagement, which is in dramatic contrast to the traditional pedagogical tableau of quiet students in rows of desks, immobilized by lectures. Instead, workshop participants are free to stand up and browse materials on other tables or study the composition of classmates’ collages. As the dynamic work continues apace, someone might call out a request for a fish, a field of snow, or a feather, and these calls activate a general scramble to oblige the seeker. Invariably, cries for vowels become increasingly urgent as the sheets of alphabet stickers become more and more depleted. When requested letters or visual items are unearthed, it is rewarding for the helpers because they have provided exactly what fellow artists need to realize their visions.

Detail from student collage on the theme of Endangered Animals, 2018

Near the end of the workshop, busy heads bend low over the tables in a final burst of concentration, determined to add finishing details like a border of faux pearls or a tissue-paper flower with a questing bee. One by one, collages are declared finished, admired by onlookers, and then placed in a spontaneous classroom gallery that is curated with the aid of masking tape or magnets. To gaze at the rapidly-expanding galleries that emerge is to be awed by the creativity, energy, and humour on display, which is visible in spirited details such as a giraffe with a bedazzled purple bow-tie or two loops of string affixed by blue gems that seal the eyelids of an anguished god.

Detail from student collage, 2017
Student collage, 2017

As soon as the galleries are complete, cellphone cameras click like mad, capturing each learner’s individual work and that of their classmates. Sometimes students will make videos of the displays, walking slowly to savour each artistic offering. Whether they record the collective works or simply examine them, it is heartwarming to see groups of rapt students standing in front of the exhibits and exclaiming over art that had not existed two hours previously. Gazing at evidence of simple materials magicked into art by virtue of imaginative effort rarely fails to impact viewers; collage reminds us that creativity is our human birthright.

Thanks to the pop-up exhibits, fresh artwork now brightens classroom walls and serves as a rich resource for written and verbal responses. For example, the following transcription of a collage presentation in a beginner’s ESL class contains visionary wisdom: “Sometimes we hear a noise and we think . . . it is something dangerous . . . but usually it’s something like this cute dog who want to play . . . Fear pulls you back. If we release our fear, we can reach to the stars” (Sergi, 2013). Sergi’s classmates and I were inspired by the comforting message of his piece, which stays with me to this day.

(Sergi’s speaking presentation, 2013)

I am very grateful for the courageous willingness of over 350 students like Sergi to try an unconventional classroom activity that encourages camaraderie, poetic thinking, and artistic confidence. Until the next collage workshop, may your garden be protected by an Ewok and your baby panda lulled to sleep by a lute.

Detail from student collage on the theme of Social Media, 2017
Detail from student collage on the topic of Healthy Lifestyles, 2017

Note: A version of this essay was first published in the Marshall Alumni Newsletter, Fall 2018

Categories
Artwork General

Collages (2017-2023)

Bookmark and Forest Paper Doll, Catherine Raine 2017
Layers of Orange Bookmark, Catherine Raine 2017
Three Hatted Birds, Catherine Raine 2017
Detail from Three Hatted Birds, Catherine Raine 2017
Detail from Three Hatted Birds, Catherine Raine 2017
Detail from Three Hatted Birds, Catherine Raine 2017
Detail from Three Hatted Birds, Catherine Raine 2017

Dancing Paper Figure for G, Catherine Raine 2017
Memorial Candle for Dad, Catherine Raine 2017
Algonquin Park Dream, Catherine Raine 2017
Embodied Road Trip, Catherine Raine 2017
Shadows of Two Thistles, Catherine Raine 2017
Detail from Shadows of Two Thistles, Catherine Raine 2017
Be, Catherine Raine 2018
Be, Catherine Raine 2018
Space Flapper, Catherine Raine 2018
Detail from Space Flapper, Catherine Raine 2018
Subway Returns to Nature, Catherine Raine 2018
Evolution of a Resting Silence, Catherine Raine 2018
Detail from Evolution of a Resting Silence, Catherine Raine 2018
1984 Journal, Catherine Raine, 2019
Detail from 1984 Journal, Catherine Raine 2019
Fire Cactus, Catherine Raine 2019
The Fox and Her World, Catherine Raine 2019
Katie’s Spring Flower Show, Catherine Raine 2019
Daydream in Green, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Daydream in Green, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Daydream in Green, Catherine Raine 2019
Memory of a River Walk, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Memory of a River Walk, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Pensive Swan, Catherine Raine 2019
The Mud Peaches Caper, Catherine Raine 2019
Shoe Celebration, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from an Abstract Bookmark, Catherine Raine 2019
Emma’s Jellyfish Yee, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Emma’s Jellyfish Yee, Catherine Raine 2019
Detail from Emma’s Jellyfish Yee, Catherine Raine 2019
Difficult Conversation, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Difficult Conversation, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Difficult Conversation, Catherine Raine 2020
Seek Fire in the Depths, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Seek Fire in the Depths, Catherine Raine 2020
Night Cap Birthday Collage, Catherine Raine 2020
Night Cap Birthday Collage, Catherine Raine 2020
Birthday Florals in Blue, Catherine Raine 2020
Wavy Sea Flowers, Catherine Raine 2020
Constellation of Objects, Catherine Raine 2020
Owl Considers Custard Cream Biscuit at Tea-Time, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Owl Considers Custard Cream Biscuit at Tea-Time, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Owl Considers Custard Cream Biscuit at Tea-Time, Catherine Raine 2020
Lady Slipper Mosaic, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Lady Slipper Mosaic, Catherine Raine 2020
Detail from Lady Slipper Mosaic, Catherine Raine 2020
Solar Mosaic, Catherine Raine 2021
Detail from Solar Mosaic, Catherine Raine 2021
Detail from Solar Mosaic, Catherine Raine 2021
Boomer’s Collage Portrait, Catherine Raine 2021
Sparkle Muffin Jumping Spider, Catherine Raine 2021
Pandemic Solitude, Catherine Raine 2021
Detail from Pandemic Solitude, Catherine Raine 2021
“Sun in an Empty Room,” Catherine Raine 2022
The Kikimora with Fern Cape, Catherine Raine 2022
Detail from the Kikimora with Fern Cape, Catherine Raine 2022
Pink Layers Bookmark, Catherine Raine 2022
Colourfish Swimming, Catherine Raine 2022
Detail from Colourfish Swimming, Catherine Raine 2022
Jenny’s Soul Bundle, Catherine Raine 2022
Flower Wheel, Catherine Raine 2022
A birthday collage (2023) inspired by a quotation by Kurt Vonnegut: “the baroque masterpiece of legal folderol” (God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, 1965, p. 1).
Detail from another birthday collage, 2023
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General Photography

Strathcarron and Rannoch Moor

Strathcarron
Strathcarron
Strathcarron
Strathcarron
Strathcarron
Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor
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General Photography

Hermitage (near Dunkeld) and Ullapool, Scotland

Black Linn Falls, Hermitage
Hermitage
View of Ullapool Harbour from Ferry Boat Inn
Boat reflections in Ullapool Harbour
Ivy on the sycamore tree behind Ullapool Museum
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General Photography

Droves Road Path and Environs, Newton Mearns, Scotland

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General Photography

A Walk in the Rain (Melrose, Scotland)

Chain Bridge (1826) over the River Tweed
North bank of the River Tweed
Priorwood Garden, Melrose
Priorwood Garden, Melrose
Priorwood Garden, Melrose

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General Photography

A Visit to University of Glasgow

South door leading to cloisters
Cloisters
University Gardens Street
University Gardens Street
University Gardens Street
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General Photography

Rouken Glen Park, Glasgow

Boating Pond
Floral reflection at the edge of the Boating Pond
The River Cart