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Collage 101
A beginning course in digital "mixed-media"
Instructor: Renee Pearson
Skill Level: Intermediate
New class opens in Spring 2010

Collage 101
Digital collage is all the rage. It’s the art of using a single medium, digital, to create the sense of a mixed-media work of art. While digital artists can learn a lot from the traditional collage process, we have a different set of tools that allow us to push the art form in a different direction.

Collage 101 isn’t about mimicking the mixed-media process or reproducing a digital collage that’s already been completed. It’s all about developing the skills and techniques to produce your own unique digital assemblages. You’ll learn how to deploy the following five tools in your digital tool box: Adjustment layers, Blending modes, Brushes, Filters & Masks. Throughout this 3-week course, Renee will have you diving into your own creative well to produce unique digital collages you’ll be proud to place in an album or hang on your walls.

How much do I need to know in advance?
Suitable for users of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, 7 or 8 and Photoshop CS3 and CS4, this course is designed for the intermediate digital crafter using either a Mac or PC. While you do not need to be proficient in any of these programs, you do need to be familiar with using them and understand the concept of layers. (If you've never used Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, take a look at our introductory class, Just the Basics, Ma'am" taught by Renee Pearson.)

Questions? Send them to Renee at renee@reneepearson.com.


Key Concepts
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The curriculum is based on weekly lessons including video, pdf and other learning aids. The workshop is designed to gradually introduce new topics and skills, allowing you to master one skill set before moving on to the next. At the end, you'll have a comprehensive set of skills you can use to plan coordinated scrapbooks and albums.

Week 1: It's elemental
Digital assemblage: Collage or montage?
Tools & techniques: Brushes and filters
Inspiration: It’s okay to borrow
Preparation: The “substrate”
Shape, texture & color
Deconstruction junction, breaking it down

Week 2: Build it
Getting started: To plan or not to plan?
Tools & techniques: Masking
Sources & resources: Pulling it together
Elements scavenger hunt
Prepping images & elements
Arranging the elements

Week 3: Collage it
Gestalt: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Tools & techniques: Blending modes & eraser tool
Blending from the substrate up
Creating digital “texture”
Type as a collage element
The art of finishing touches


Supplies? Fuggedaboudit!
All you need to have is:

Access to a PC or MAC computer with
Photoshop Elements 6, 7 or 8 or
Photoshop CS3 or CS4.

In addition to your course materials, you'll receive a variety of digital elements for your collages.


Samples do not represent class projects. Each student will make his or her own unique collages. Click the thumbnails to enlarge the images.
Sample 2

Finding inspiration in other artwork can help to jumpstart your own creative process.
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When you arrange digital elements and images on a page, you're in essence creating a collage.
Sample 3

The tools that make it all happen are inside Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. In Collage 101, you'll become very familiar with brushes, blending modes, filters and adjustment layers.

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