Different techniques and mediums:
De coupage:
Decoupage is a craft technique of affixing paper decorations to a hard surface with glue. By looking at a finished project, you would think this craft technique would be complicated, but it isn't. Decoupage started in France in the 17th century as the poor man's alternative to painted furniture. It is quite simple. If you can cut and paste, you already know most of the techniques involved.
Photomontage:
Photomontage is an artistic practice that has endured almost since the birth of photography itself. At its most basic level, the photomontage is a single image combined of two or more original and/or existing images. The artist in question produces a montage to encourage their audience to think about the relationship between the grouped images. The photomontage will be achieved by cutting and pasting, while original or found photographs can often be placed next to non-photographic images (such as written text and even patterns and shapes). A "new" image might also be created by altering an original photograph through tearing and cutting. In every instance of this artistic approach the viewer is required, be that consciously or unconsciously, to make sense of an original artwork composed through image associations. Photomontage is often used as a means of expressing political dissent. It was first used as a technique by the Dadaists in 1915 in their protests the First World War. It was later adopted by the surrealists who exploited the possibilities photomontage offered by using free association to bring together widely disparate images, to reflect the workings of the unconscious mind.
Typography:
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information. Typography is the work of typesetters (also known as compositors), typographers, graphic designers, art directors, manga artists, comic book artists, and, now, anyone who arranges words, letters, numbers, and symbols for publication, display, or distribution, from clerical workers and newsletter writers to anyone self-publishing materials. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Digitization opened typography to new generations of previously unrelated designers and lay users. As the capability to create typography has become ubiquitous, the application of principles and best practices developed over generations of skilled workers and professionals has diminished.
Collage:
Collage describes both the technique and the resulting work of art in which pieces of paper, photographs, fabric, and other ephemera are arranged and stuck down onto a supporting surface. The term collage derives from the French term papiers collés (or decoupage), used to describe techniques of pasting paper cut-outs onto various surfaces. It was first used as an artists’ technique in the early twentieth century. Collage can also include other media such as painting and drawing, and contain three-dimensional elements. Collage allows the opening of conscious, which is very direct…it’s also a way of looking at what you are consuming all the time.
Digital Collage:
Digital collage, in its form, is not new to the art scene. It uses the same production technique used in making a conventional hand-made collage, which is creating a whole new artwork from an assemblage of existing artistic materials. Collage making dates to the early years of twentieth century with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque being the first ones to use the cut-and-paste technique. They coined the word “collage”, which translates to the French verb “coller” meaning “to glue”. Furthermore, collage became an intersection of both high and low culture, as it also brought newspapers, advertisements, and magazines into play. Collage artists put together the images to communicate a complex message in masse. American artist Robert Motherwell described it to be “the twentieth century's greatest innovation.” Digital collage, however, transcends the limits of manual hand-cutting and pasting. Contemporary artists manipulate the samples of existing artworks and assemble the images digitally with the use of computer programs, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, as an essential of the production process. The technologically advanced generation provides an area of work that has endless possibilities for today’s artists. What with today’s easy access to plethora of materials, digital collage artists can engage with an abundance of existing resources that can be found online. This makes for incredible diversity and breadth in the art production, offering them with a huge range of artistic possibilities and a more connected global environment!
Painting:
Painting is the practice of applying paint or other media to a surface, usually with a brush. In art, the term painting describes both the act of painting, (using either a brush or other implement, such as palette knife, sponge, or airbrush to apply the paint); and the result of the action – the painting as an object. Painting is an important form in the visual arts, bringing in elements such as drawing, composition, gesture (as in gestural painting), narration (as in narrative art), and abstraction (as in abstract art). Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in still life and landscape painting), photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic (as in Symbolist art), emotive (as in Expressionism) or political in nature (as in Artivism).