Vintage grid

Series: Collage Makers Summit #2

Collage Makers Summit from Drew Steinbrecher
Workshop: Making a vintage grid
Host: Jane Chipp website – Instagram

I can be quite lazy (let’s be charitable and call it “efficient”) at times when it comes to choosing supplies for projects, reaching for the things that are nearby rather than trying to remember exactly where I left a certain pen or trinket. So when I set about choosing papers for this vintage-inspired grid collage I started by going through the ones left over from making the Photo Kintsugi collage, including some that didn’t end up being used.

The map, numbers and handwriting gave me a good foundation. To add texture, I chose papers from my stash that I had coloured with sprays and pigment powders (Brusho). I also had some small prints of old family photos that were just the right size for this grid.

I wanted to add a bit of colour and was inspired by the paper with the blue ripples. Needing more blue, I found some scraps of painted paper and a not particularly successful cyanotype that still had a few interesting bits that I could use.

I liked the grid design, but at the same time, I wanted something to break it up a little, so I fussy cut a couple of butterflies to add at the end.

The hardest part of this was cutting accurate squares so that everything lined up without overlapping or leaving gaps. The second hardest thing was settling on an arrangement that I really liked. You can see from my first layout attempt (above) that I changed an awful lot of things before arriving at the final design.

In spite of the fiddliness, I do like the grid layout and am tempted to try another one without the “vintage” constraint though; the blue is nice, but I want more colour!