• Three Things I Did Well Today
• Portrait Of You - Collage
  • All you need to know about this activity
  • Step 1: It's all about you
  • Step 2 and 3: Connections and your theme
  • Step 4 and 5: Associated feelings, colour and mood
  • Step 6: Texture and mood
  • Step 7: Plan your collage
  • Step 8: Mount your work
  • What next?
• Imaginary Lives - Creative Writing
• Who Am I? (Part 1 and 2) - Creative Writing

Step 7: Plan your collage

• Now you’re ready to start your ‘Portrait of You’ collage.  Lay out your mind map of your chosen theme and any collage materials, colours and textured materials you have collected

• First draw around your hand on a piece of card (or the back of a cereal packet)

• Start by choosing coloured and textured materials to cover your hand. These should represent all the textures you’ve chosen for each of your feelings

• Your hand collage design can be as decorative, experimental or symbolic as you like

• Look at our examples on the next page for ideas and inspiration

• If you haven’t already done so, watch our video on collage techniques

You can cut or tear your materials into shapes that represent your objects or associations. See our example below. The yellow flower shape has been ripped using craft paper. The purple flower has  been cut from wrapping paper. The guitar has been ripped out of coloured card. The butterfly has been cut out of a magazine.

• Before sticking down your collage, lay the pieces down, overlap and move them around to find the layout you like the best

Using PVA

PVA is better for sticking thick materials down. Be careful about how much PVA you use though, as the papers you’ll have are likely to be different weights and thickness. Using too much glue tends to cause papers to wrinkle. Keeping some baby wipes/wet wipes or a damp cloth to hand is useful to get any stray glue off your fingers, as this can transfer onto your collage if you’re not careful.

• Once you’ve finished gluing allow your collage to dry in the air

Gallery of examples:

Have a look at our gallery of examples, below. These use a selection of fabric, glitter, sand, handmade and textured papers, and recycled materials including pictures from magazines and wrapping paper.

• Once your collage is dry to touch, you could lay it under a heavy book or similar to flatten it. Once fully dry, cut out your ‘Portrait of You’ hand

Click on an image to view a larger version

Image 1. Pictures cut from magazines that illustrate a theme
Image 2. Text cut from magazines alongside simple imagery
Image 3. Recycled materials including wallpaper, packaging, cards,newsprint, tickets and buttons
Image 4. Recycled materials: pictures and text