Never Beautiful Enough: A Guide to Creative Collage and Artistic Expression

Instruction and inspiration combine in this visually stunning how-to guide on creative collage through a comprehensive explanation of techniques, project ideas, and an abundance of artistic examples by Italian artist Naomi Vona.

Creative Collage features both step-by-step advice and over 200 full-color examples. Vona provides detailed storyboards through photographs and captions across a range of projects in mixed media on paper and wood. Each project includes the following:

• Storyboard-like photos of each process with captions offering detailed and easy-to-follow explanations on how to create mixed media collages on paper and wood.
• Materials, techniques, and tools, from what types of acrylic paint pens she uses to the specific Washi tape she favors to how to explore pattern and color palettes through layering and hand-lettering.
• Individual sections include building your own art kit; working with fashion magazine images, mixed media, vintage photos, and ephemera; and creating your own abstract art pieces.

Vona is widely known for her inspiring collages that transform fashion magazine ads into feminist art pieces, questioning conventional notions of beauty and the overwhelming consumerism that supports them. Through paint, collage, and hand-lettered text, Vona creates her own artistic beauty that is subversive, detailed, colorful, patterned, layered, and visually bold.

In the fashion magazine section, Vona shares over 200 full-color, full-page illustrations from her Selling Lies series, which reinterprets images from the pages of Vogue. Her visually dense style includes integrated, handwritten text in response to the images she builds upon. The alternately hidden and legible commentary questions notions of physical perfection and the pervasiveness of advertising within the beauty industry.

This stunning guide and comprehensive collection of visually layered collage examples makes an excellent gift or collectible for artists, journalers, creative professionals, educators, and students of art history, contemporary art, and feminist studies.

Naomi Vona is an Italian artist whose work combines found ephemera, photography, painting, collage, illustration, and hand-lettered text. Naomi has a devoted following on Instagram @mariko.koda and teaches workshops throughout Europe.