A Room with a View

Find a window in your home and arrange a few objects you enjoy on the windowsill. A cup, a plant, something you’ve collected. Take a moment to look.

Start with the largest shapes. Think about the light coming through the window as one large shape of color. Maybe you begin with that. Or maybe it’s the wall surrounding the window.

Now look at what interrupts those larger shapes. The window frame, the blinds, the branches of a tree outside. What medium and small shapes can you layer on top? Where do things overlap? What spaces appear between them?

Build your collage from the largest shapes to the smallest, letting each new piece change the arrangement.

Let your palette lead. Your colors are not going to match what you see. You’re not trying to reproduce the view. You’re finding a new way to describe it through unexpected color and shape.

Play it Again

There’s enough paper in your kit to make two collages.

Try interpreting the same subject again, but change the balance of colors in your palette. What happens when a color you used sparingly takes up the most space? Or when your dominant color becomes the accent?

Same subject, same palette, and a whole new set of relationships.