Emily Evans Portable Collage Kit

A portable collage kit developed by myself and loaned to various artists.

Visiting new places or seeing new things always compelled me to want to enjoy these moments or record them via illustration and I wanted to do it in collage! In 2019. I walked to the Norfolk Coastal path whilst testing a large portable kit, collecting textures from the nature I was walking through.
I met a walker, she showed me her very small portable mono print kit, which she had taken on the pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago .As a result, then decided to make my own much smaller kit.
I started to create a much smaller kit made up of a small printer, a chinagraph pencil, glue, scissors, mini sketchbook. I wanted something to keep everything organized and something to allow me to work easily when there was no surface to lean on.
I created a laser-cut device to hold my kit and to lean on during making, where every piece could be attached to this device via elastic and secured, but with holes where the pencil or scissors could be held when you were working. After testing this kit, I found these little things helped. I got into a rhythm when I was making, and it allowed the process to be streamlined without the distraction of losing things. This kit has then subsequently been given out to different creatives for them to test and use, so it can be improved.
One of the most important parts of this kit was a black and white mini thermo printer! For myself, this small printer presented the opportunity to print and collage with photos live in the moment.
In Art Therapy, the materials are often referred to as the art therapist's ‘third hand’ (Tamar Pesso-Aviv MA et al., 2014). It suggests that different types of materials, such as pencils, can create different types of engagement.
Messy materials such as watercolors or pastels are described as ‘regressive’ as they require much more control (Liebmann, 2004). As such, more ‘regressive’ materials such as pastels, paint and charcoals are often used in Art Therapy to help process through feelings of anger and lack of control in safe environments where the Therapist can help divulge and understand the underlying causes of such distress.
Collage can be interpreted as an interesting middle ground between such ‘controlled’ and ‘regressive’ materials. A process that challenges control to an extent that develops divergent thinking and increases people’s ability to manage a lack of control and gain positive experiences from a lack of it via collage.