Yesterday’s collage workshop gave me much more of an appreciation for all of the work that went into Max Ernst’s book. He cut out all of the images he used so well that they almost seamlessly blend together, which it turns out is pretty hard to do. The workshop also made me wonder about Ernst’s creative process. How much of each section or page did he have planned out ahead of time and how much did he allow the images he had on hand to influence him? I went into the workshop with a couple ideas about scenes that I might like to use for my final illustration and then let the images available influence which of those ideas I chose.

Collage is an interesting medium because it seems like the images you have available will always influence the art you produce, at least to some extent. The images you use can inspire you, but it seems like they could also be potentially limiting. It at least forces you to get more creative with your materials if you go in with a specific image in mind that you want to create, for example with the Nancy Goodman Lawrence image that was in our collage powerpoint in class.