Paper collage building with Marit Barentsen

Today's guest is Marit Barentsen, a mixed media artist/instructor from The Netherlands. I "met" Marit through Scrapping The Music and I just love her unique style...especially those awesome art journaling pages! :) Today, she shares a tutorial on building a paper collage (yay!) and will issue a challenge with a RAK for a random participant! :)

Let's have a look at her awesome creations! :)

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I’m Marit Barentsen and I am excited that Yvonne asked me to be her guest blogger! She wants me to tell a bit about myself and my inspiration so here we go: I am a passionate artist who’s loves to try new techniques, products and ideas and I always try to stretch myself in my work. I started scrapping back in 2001 and my style evolved from the "traditional scrapbooking" to the free style art journaling. That's what I'm doing mostly right now.

I graduated as a teacher in arts and I have my own website and private community where I teach online workshops. I also work as a graphic designer and I write articles for the Dutch scrap magazine “Creatief met Foto’s”.

My favorite medium is paper, but I couldn't live without pens, markers, paint and spray ink...

I don't buy much stuff in the traditional scrapbooking stores. I rather stroll on a flea market looking for "treasures" like old books, vintage cards, lace and buttons. I also visit the artist store quite frequently for plain paper, cardboard and all sorts of paint and pens. I get my inspiration from "life itself" - everything I see or hear can trigger my imagination and make me start a new lay-out. My big tip for inspiration: look around with fresh eyes, like you did when you were a kid. If you don't just "see" but also "look" you can find inspiration everywhere!

Interested in Marit's workshops?

The online art journal workshop "Let it Loose" (teacher: Marit) has just started on September 6th but you can still join!

The online art journal workshop "Mixed Emotions" (teachers: Marit Barentsen and Michelle LaPoint Rydell) starts in October.

All info can be found on Marit's Paper World

Using collage on your lay-out/art journal page. 

Start with any base you like. A 12 x 12 sheet, an art journal page in a book etc. (In this example I painted a piece of paper, tore it and glue the pieces on the art journal page.)

Now the fun begins! Cut all kinds of paper scraps with decoration from magazines. (TIP: store the left overs in a folder. If you do this more often you will build up a collection over time.)

Create a frame around the page using all different pieces of paper. Then look for photos or pictures in magazines and make a collage with all different images. It’s fun to combine faces (eyes, mouth), use animal heads on human bodies and so on. Just play and fool around … feel like a little kid and have fun!

Find a quote you like and use markers to “draw” the letters. You can try writing different types or use colours. (TIP: A lot of nice quotes can be found on www.brainyquote.com) 

If you have space left on your page fill it up with more cut out shapes or doodle with paint, copic markers, colouring pencils or anything else you like! Just don’t think too much about it and doodle like you did in highschool… have fun!

Here’s another example of a page made with collage.

The CHALLENGE:

Make a lay-out, card or art journal page using a quote and collage. It can be only collaging the border or a full page collage… that’s up to you!:)

The winner will get a small RAK with things that can be used for art journaling like journaling pads, pieces of lace, vintage images, bookpages etc.

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How's that for a challenge??? :)

You have a little over 2 weeks to play along...the deadline is 24 September! :) Please leave the links to your projects with Inlinkz located at the end of this post! :) [This is the first time I'm using this so I hope it works!]

As always, please leave a little love for my guest! :) Thank you so much my sweet friends! :)