Every year there are more and more resources becoming available for free public domain or royalty free images! That’s great news for digital artists, since it means more amazing photos, illustrations, and ephemera to work with. The majority of the image elements I use in…
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How to fix blurry and pixelated digital collages
Updated August 1, 2021. Sometimes when I create a digital collage it looks perfect in the preview, but comes out blurry in the final export. Or sometimes MOST of the collage looks fine, but one image element is badly pixelated. I couldn’t figure out what…
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5 tips for getting the most out of the NYPL Digital Collections
The New York Public Library Digital Collections is a resource of 900,000+ digitized items, including photos, illustrations, manuscripts, texts and videos– with more being added every day! There’s a huge amount of digitized art, photos, and texts from around the world, and a particularly good…
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How to find vintage photos on the Library of Congress website
The Library of Congress website is my go-to resource for free vintage images of people. The LOC has a huge collection of photographs from the very early days of the camera, as well as illustrations, posters, prints, and more. It’s the first place I go…
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100+ pieces of trash to upcycle into junk journals
One of my favorite things to do is to turn junk into art. A large part of my collage materials collection is just stuff I’ve saved from the trash– personal ephemera, yes, but also things like junk mail, catalogs, fruit stickers, etc. Not only am…
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Tea Bag Ephemera: Upcycled Junk Journal Technique
My mom, Kathy, put together a video showing how she makes “tea bag” style ephemera for her junk journals! Kathy does a lot of interesting things with used tea bags and other “junk” items. She developed this ephemera square after looking for a way to…
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Be a more confident artist: share your art online!
There comes a point when you want to share something you’ve made. You’re really excited about a particular collage and want to show it off– so you join a few Facebook groups, make an account on Flickr, maybe even start an art Instagram page. And…
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