collage Archives - CLEVERcreating

7 Creative Travel Journal Tips and Tricks for the Best Journey

July 26, 2024July 26, 2024 by Hannie Mommers

Whether you keep it simple or more complicated, making a creative travel journal during your trips is great fun.

My mother used to make scrapbooks when she was back from a holiday. It was in the pre-digital days, so she had to wait until the film rolls were developed. When time passes we might forget things.

Nowadays we are fortunate to have access to smartphones and small digital printers so we can work on a travel journal during the trip. It is one of my main creative travel journal tips: work on it every day.

Gelli-Printing Magazine Pictures for Beautiful Results

June 13, 2024June 13, 2024 by Hannie Mommers

When I started making Gelli prints, I used lots of stencils and all kinds of objects to make textures. I also printed some photos which worked quite well.

This was definitely a matter of beginner’s luck because they all failed when I tried to print pictures a few months after that. 😉

So when this year’s 100-Day Project came along, I sunk my teeth into making loads of prints and discovering how I could make sure the results were more consistent.

Read my tips for Gelli-printing magazine pictures in this article.

A Creative Approach to Add Text to an Art Journal, 7 Tips

May 31, 2024May 16, 2024 by Hannie Mommers

An art journal can be created in 2 ways. The focus can be on images with added text. Or the focus can be on texts to which images are added.

That depends on your own preferences. Are you primarily visual or are you mostly text-oriented?

If you’re going to add text to an art journal, it’s a good idea to try both methods. As an artist, we sometimes have to step out of our comfort zone and challenge our personal preferences to take leaps forward.

In this article, I describe several ways to display text, but also to create text.

Creative Playing on the Beach for Grown-ups

January 15, 2024January 15, 2024 by Hannie Mommers

Isn’t it a pity that we tend to forget how to play? What do you think about playing on the beach for grown-ups? I can assure you that it is fun!

Years ago my former colleagues and I went to a beach house once a year to get creative inspiration.

We were all creative souls and we gave ourselves assignments to develop our creative skills even further. There I discovered again what fun it is to play on the beach.

30 Tips to Spend Free Time Finding Inspiration for Creative Projects

January 5, 2024January 5, 2024 by Hannie Mommers

At most of the exhibitions where I showed my work, I tried to be present to talk to the visitors. The most frequently asked question was: where do you find the inspiration for your subjects? To which my answer was that I had some tricks for that.

Developing inspiration is a conscious process. Or at least it could be. It also depends on our character what our favourite method is.

In this article, I give you 30 tips to spend your free time finding inspiration and spark your creativity. It is a random list of all kinds of things I occasionally do. Get inspired.

Making a Creative Travel Journal while Travelling Doubles the Fun

July 26, 2024October 9, 2023 by Hannie Mommers

My personal challenge of 2022/23 to make a collage (almost) daily sparks a lot of creativity and inspiration. The easiest way to work on a collage is at home where I have all my materials and tools, making it extra challenging when we go on a trip. How do I make a collage then?

Last year I solved that ‘problem’ by taking lots of pictures and either making a Canva collage or collecting small items and putting those together in an assemblage. The end result was a photo.

This time I planned to make collages in a creative travel journal, where I wanted to include more elements of a day.

What is Gelli Printing and What Makes it so Amazingly Easy?

August 25, 2023August 25, 2023 by Hannie Mommers

Gelli printing is a form of monoprinting. Each piece of work is unique and usually depends largely on chance.

A Gelli print can be created in different ways. In this article, I describe a number of pure Gelli printing methods and combinations with other techniques.

It is great fun to experiment with this technique. For me, that is the biggest charm of Gelli printing. For starting hobbyists, the advantage is that the learning curve is really low.

It’s Great to Combine Collage with Drawing or Painting

August 4, 2023 by Hannie Mommers

Collages can be created in many ways.

Sometimes, I fill the entire surface with magazine pieces that are put together to create an interesting composition.

In other cases, however, I prefer to leave the collage open and simple, so that I can paint or draw more freely on the background.

To combine collage with drawing or painting is a great way of making mixed media images.

Using a Theme when Expressing Yourself is Truly Inspiring

June 9, 2023June 9, 2023 by Hannie Mommers

My inspiration often comes from working on a theme. In photography, drawing, painting, and making collages it’s a great way to keep getting ideas and expressing yourself.

You might know that my personal challenge at this moment is making a daily collage for a year. I didn’t start on January 1 but at a moment when the idea came to me. And I am not too rigid that it really has to be each day because, as we all know, life sometimes comes in between.

At the start, I just made collages. Yet, to make 365 collages without any underlying thought doesn’t keep being interesting. After a couple of months, I developed a subtheme dedicated to one month. Like art journaling, printing pictures, or making stencils.