Since I haven’t posted to this blog in a while, I thought I’d share something I do in January to get the year going.
Collage day! This is the day we use pictures from the year(s) before to look to the year ahead. My family (not all blood related) spends a day in January to make our year collages. It’s a chance to have fun with scissors & glue, just like when we were kids; but it’s also a kind of meditation & an exercise in shared insight.
This is not a location or day based event (aside from some time Januaryish), but a crafting all together from anywhere kind of event.
If you want to do a year collage, (I’d love to see other people’s year collages, feel free to post yours in the comments.) here’s the guidelines (guidelines, not rules, if you want to do anything differently go for it!):
supplies:
-poster board,
-magazines, catalogues, etc. (stuff you are ok cutting up, enough to fill a poster board without blank spots.),
-glue of your choice ( I like glue sticks. They’re less messy, but you have to work fast or the glue will dry.),
-good scissors
1. Thumb through the magazines etc. & pull any pictures or images that strike you. Don’t think too hard at this point, just take things you like. If you have done a year collage before, feel free to add any materials saved from previous years too.
2. Now separate the pictures you pulled into the colors: green, blue, red, yello, & white. These colors will fill the 4 corners & the center of the collage. If a picture has more than one dominant color make a judgement call & if you use the image, place it going toword the other dominant color’s area.
3. See if the images you picked have a theme of any kind and pair down each color stack to what will fit on about 1/5 of the poster board. You might want to keep things that you’d like to see for yourself & loved ones in the coming year. But, Make sure each color group has a representation of a living being (person, animal, etc.). If there are images you really liked but didn’t fit this years collage, set them aside for another year’s collage.
4. Make your collage with green in the upper left, blue in the upper
Year collage 2015
right, red in the lower left, yellow in the lower right and white in the middle. Cut stuff out, (I always lay out my collage before glueing so I know I’m happy with the over all look before its stuck.) & glue it down. (For example of colors, the picture is my last years collage.)
5. Take a picture & share it (or show it to friends & family who might be interested), & see what things they notice about your collage. You might be surprised what insights, about yourself, their comments can reveal. Sometimes others see more clearly what your subconscious might be saying in the images you picked.
