Altered state
If you have damaged photos that you don't want to just throw out, you can repurpose them for a myriad of different creative projects.
- If you want to use materials that would normally not adhere to a photographic surface, you can use clear watercolour ground on top. Once dry, you can paint on the surface more easily with watercolours, or draw on them with various types of pen.
- You can create some different effects by adding the clear ground over the entire image and doing light washes to let the image show through the added colour. You can do this on colour images as well as black and white.
- Combine the damaged images with contrasting/unrelated found objects to create surrealist assemblages.
- You can add shapes and patterns to an image by using a hole punch on it, shape punches, scoring, tearing, fumage, or any other type of direct physical alteration. You can thread string, thread, or ribbon through any holes as you wish, or simply leave them as they are.
- You can rip or cut the photos apart and add them to other work as collage elements.
- You could cut holes into specific parts of the photos, lay them over something else such that the hole reveals text or another image underneath.
- Fill in a cut out part of the photo with a line/sketch drawing of the portion that was cut out.