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#000010

Collage Techniques

Gerald Brommer

A clear, generous studio guide to collage from one of American watercolor's great teachers. Gerald Brommer approaches the medium expansively — washi and rice papers, stained and found papers, photographs, fabrics and fibers, all in combination with watermedia — and lays out each avenue through step-by-step demonstration. It is unpretentious, practical, and grounded in decades of workshop teaching: less a theory of collage than a working painter showing you, patiently, how the effects are actually achieved. For the artist who wants to loosen up, build surface and texture, or fold collage into a watercolor practice, it remains a reliable and encouraging handbook.

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The author

Gerald F. Brommer (a B.A. from Concordia Teachers College in Nebraska, an M.A. from the University of Nebraska) is a widely exhibited watercolorist and collagist whose work is held in thousands of private and public collections, and a life member and former president of the National Watercolor Society. Above all he was a teacher — a prolific author of art-technique books and a fixture of workshops across the country — and the book carries that patient, demonstrational voice.

The book

Published in 1994 by Watson-Guptill, in the same practical vein as his Watercolor and Collage Workshop; organized by material and method, each explored through step-by-step examples.

How it has aged

Well, precisely because it is technique-first rather than trend-first — the materials and moves it teaches do not date. It sits in the sturdy tradition of the Watson-Guptill studio how-to, the kind of book that has quietly taught generations of amateur and professional artists alike.

For more context

Brommer's own Watercolor and Collage Workshop; and the longer history of collage as a fine-art medium since the Cubist papiers colles.

Sources

Type
Book
Author / Maker
Gerald Brommer
Publisher
Watson-Guptill
Place of publication
New York
Year
1994
ISBN
None
Shelf
Craft & How-to
Location
Maine