Gorgeous And Artful Painted Paper Collage For Every Skill Level

As I have mentioned I have begun to dip my big toe into the world of Instagram, from my computer that is, and in just the smallish community of 99.9% female artists and illustrators where I’m currently hanging out, I’ve already found so many inspiring artists unknown to me previously, because well, they’ve been promoting themselves on instagram! One such artist is Este Macleod, who has a wonderful, truly artful style, and best of all, a sense of creativity, and a love for teaching and encouraging creativity that is exceptional.

Este loves creating by starting with letters and numbers (right up my alley!), and In her instagram post (you do know you can easily access instagram from a computer right?) from January 6th, she takes the phrase “stay home and make art” and turns it into a fantastic painted village. You can also see a similar process on Vimeo here. This is truly fabulous, and really got my attention! I was so excited to see that she teaches online, and even did a few mini courses to help encourage creativity during the pandemic. Her courses are only available twice generally, not forever, because she is involved with the students taking the class, and gives feedback on student work. The great news for us is that her painted paper collage course, Colour Collage 1 is now going on its repeat cycle and then it will be gone. That is right friends, which is why I will be participating in the course which starts on March 1, and finishes fortunately right before Passover!

If you want to treat yourself and your family to some amazing, creative art lessons on-line that are one of kind, and suited to all skill levels this is the place to do it. Este’s style isn’t flashy, rather very real. Her presentation style feels much more like one is taking part in a real academic art course, which I love, on the other hand she breaks the creative process down into very understandable and doable steps, so you could totally do it as a beginner, or with kids. Okay, lets take a look at a few more examples of the kind of artwork that has been created using the techniques from this course!

Above: This looks like a painting, but it is a collage, amazing right? I just saw that Este posted a video of this process on her Instagram, so take a look!

Above: Layer of painted collage paper make stunning poppies!

Painted paper collage is an ideal process to explore and develop your own creative style and apply it to multiple subject matter. It encourages you to be brave with color combinations and nurtures an adventurous, confident approach to experimentation with mixed media and painting techniques. This is exactly what I could use right about now in my creative practice, and it might just be the thing for you as well!

Colour Collage 1 runs from 1-21 March 2021 with access to course resources for an additional three months after that to enable you to revisit projects or to complete them at your own pace. Maybe we can create some amazing new art, for those spanking clean Passover ready rooms, or even glorious fields of poppies in bloom, just because, together!

Above: Look at those fruit, stunning, and those poppies with so much interest, love it.

When the technique of collage is used as a tool to make expressive and personal art, the results are truly stunning, what more can I say? Stay tuned to see my take on this technique, and just saying you’ll need a few supplies that someone like me may not have at their local art supply store, so it is a good idea to plan ahead and go for it! And now I know why my kids mistakenly bought sandwich wrap paper (deli paper, used by collage/mixed media artists) instead of the baking paper I asked for, I need if for this course!