After completing this collage in December, I cleaned the discarded bits up off the floor and saved them.

When you do ripped collage, you can rip a paper in two ways. This is quickly obvious if you try to rip a painted piece of paper. Rip it one way, and you’ll expose a white edge of the paper, while ripping it in the other direction, you’ll get an edge without that white bit. I usually use the clean edged rips in my collage work, because they meld better into the the composition. That means white edged bits of ripped paper usually get discarded.

Contrariwise, however, it is just as valid to embrace the white-edged bits for their stand out nature. So in these three sketchbook (artist journal) pages, I decided to lean into utilizing the white-edged rips as a distinct design element, and I’m really liking the result. Doesn’t the one above look like snow on twigs? In the bottom one, I played with possibilities of waves and sky with the white edges, although I’m not sure that one is finished yet. Is it crying out to become a base for an abstraction, or should I lean into the landscape action and get some larger clouds coming toward us from above?

I recommend painting some basic copy paper in a small palette of solid colors, and then encourage you to play with ripping them and seeing what you can do with the different types of edges. The first two here I pasted the bits onto a colored ground, while the last one below was done on white. Play with how these kinds of differences yield distinct and fresh results. Notice how the white edge sets each piece apart a bit. We can use that to our advantage!

Working on experiments like this in your sketchbook or artist journal yields a treasure trove of ideas when it comes to making finished work. Like in this case, I now know a great way to depict snow on brambles, branches or twigs!

Give this a try; it is a great way to warm up our creative juices for a new year.