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Effective Magazine Clipping

© Seshat

If you're anything like me, you are always searching for a new image, new word, new something to add to your paper projects, collage or mail art. A fabulous source for images are the magazines that you regularly read anyhow, and if you don't subscribe to any yourself there are always people willing to get rid of them either at garage and rummage sales or from a family or friend.

Magazines make excellent sources of imagery because they are visual in nature. So, you can benefit from the work of other artists whose specialties may be photography, graphic design, advertising or even writing. By cutting and pasting their images, words and creations into your own paper art designs you have a wonderful resource. However, you should never sell any paper arts which use another artist's copyrighted image or try to make a profit by mistakenly representing portions of their work as your own original.

My daughter taught me this simple method for clipping magazines effectively so that you can find materials, and also keep them in good order without wrinkles, bends and messing up an image by cutting it too close for later use. It also helps cut down on your piles of waste and keeps them orderly. You will need:

• Magazines,
• Scissors or an x-acto knife,
• 1/2 inch masking tape,
• Manilla file folders,
• A black marker,
• A red marker,
• A blue marker,
• A box or file cabinet.

Once you have the supplies together, grab a magazine and you're ready to go.

• Pull off the cover and the back of the magazine. Lay them side by side on a flat surface and tape them along the seam, just catching the edges with the masking tape. Then turn the joined covers over and place another piece of tape over the exposed sticky part of the tape you just laid, again catching the edges of the covers. In this way you've bound the seam into a folder of it's own and can keep all cuttings from that magazine in one place so you know the source.

• Start with the first page and look at the magazine page by page for images you would like to use. If you see something, take one of your markers in a contrasting color and put an arrow to the section you think would be useful. Then carefully rip or cut the entire page out and place it in your magazine cover folder for future use. This way, you can cut the image as you need for the specific paper project as it arises which means you can allow for cutting fine detail without getting it bent or damaged in storage, and you can leave excess for images that will be pasted behind frames and other creative pursuits. Most magazines store easily in regular size manilla folders.

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