Hello. Hello, everybody, and welcome. Welcome. I am so, so excited to see you here. We have 225 people so far. I had 2,300 people sign up for this, you guys. 2,300. Just blows my mind. Already, we are at, like, the largest Zoom meeting I have ever hosted, and I've been doing this for six years pretty pretty regularly. So I am so happy you are here today.

Today, in in case you don't remember what you signed up for, you just clicked the Zoom link, you signed up for the free six collages in sixty minutes workshop. And that is what we are going to do. So I'm just gonna run through the chat real quick and see who's here. We have Ivy from North Carolina, Naomi from New York, Amy from a very cold Madison, Wisconsin, Lou from Scotland, Julie from Austin, Tara from snowy Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sheila from South Carolina, Rosemary, Ohio, Rita, Texas, Margarita, Florida, Karen, BC, Canada, Christine, snowy, New Jersey, Tara, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Elizabeth, North Alabama, Tammy, Oakland, California, Marcy, Las Vegas, Shauna, Arizona, Shuster, Memphis, Naomi, Iowa, Alexandra, Montreal, Joy in Utah, ML in Northern California, Allison, Ontario. Oh my gosh, guys. I can't get through all of these. We'd be here all day.

Do you see a few people, from Europe, although it's a little late in the evening for you all. I appreciate you staying up late, and and I appreciate everybody that's getting hit with the winter weather craziness, over here in The States today. I'm in South Texas, and we had a little bit of a freeze last night, little freezing rain this morning. My studio is not insulated, but I'm actually quite comfortable. So I was really happy that this was later in the day, because this morning, I was wearing probably 27 layers in my big parka and gloves, and it's really hard to collage in gloves. So enough about the weather. You don't wanna hear about the weather. You wanna know what the heck we're doing here today, and I'm gonna tell you all about it. I'm gonna do a screen share and just go through a few things before we jump in and make six collages in sixty minutes. And let me know in the chat where you're watching, friend. I know a lot a lot of you are brand new to CollageLab.

I've been watching the names come in over the past week or so, and I'm just so excited to welcome you to CollageLab with this free workshop. I'm Kelly. If we haven't met before, I am a mixed media collage artist. I am here in Rockport, Texas. It's about 37 degrees Fahrenheit right now, which is a little chilly for Texas. But I'm from well, I grew up in Wisconsin and spent most of my adult life in Minnesota. So I do know what cold is. I know what snow is, but but I'm over it, guys. So not not thrilled with the weather here in Texas today. I am the founder of CollageLab.

I'll tell you a little bit about CollageLab in a minute, but this is something I started six years ago and gotta say best job I've ever had. Prior to that, I spent twenty five plus years working in nonprofit theater and arts administration. I am a lifelong learner. I take every class I possibly can. I am a one person business. So, if if somebody's emailing me right now that they can't get in the Zoom room, I'm sorry, but there's nobody answering that email right now. I am a serial entrepreneur. GarageLab is I don't even know how many businesses I started before it, but, hopefully, this is my my final business. It's it's a job I absolutely love. Fun facts about me. I started working in live theater at age 15. I spent ten years full time in the Minnesota Army National Guard. I toured The United States with, National Public Radio Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. I also toured The US with five semi trucks full of animatronic dinosaurs. I was the general manager of a Tony award winning regional theater. I owned my own independent bookstore. I met my current boyfriend during a cat four hurricane here in Rockport, Texas in 2017, and we've been together ever since. I call it our whirlwind romance. And he and I are caretakers for six sweet cows. They're they're actually our landlord's cows, but we take care of them. And so you are in the right place.

If you get stuck deciding what to do next, if you wanna loosen up and create without pressure, if you are short on time but wanna create meaningful art, that's what we're going to do today. And if you stay to the end, I have a very special offer for you, and I'm also giving away three months inside of our amazing membership. So I just wanna be right up front. Free workshop usually means somebody is selling you something. And yes, I am. I am opening the doors to our membership. It only happens a few times a year, and I'm gonna tell you all about it if you stick around. You don't have to stick around. That's okay. But I do have a special deal, and I am going to, give away, the three months in the membership. So thank you for being here.

Just wanna tell you a little bit about CollageLab, and then we'll get started, and we'll make six collages. I started CollageLab in, actually, late twenty nineteen. I got the website and knew I wanted to do something with the collage community. I started a Facebook group and started doing some some different events. And in February 2020, as the world started closing down, for COVID, I decided it was time to teach online. I had been teaching in person locally, several different art centers around here, and I had been, exhibiting and selling my work, in the local area and, few national exhibits, and all of that came to a screeching halt in 2020. And so I said, you know, I've always wanted to teach online. I had done a ton of research, so I was I was ready to take that leap.

And so in March 2020, I released a free class called g is for grids, which is still available and still free. It actually was rerecorded last year because, oh my gosh, it's really hard to look at something that you created eight years ago and go, or six years ago. And and, you know, it it just makes you cringe when you look at video production and listen to the sound and everything. So I've rerecorded that. It's a free thirty minute video. There's a 29 page, PDF workbook to go along with that, and you can grab that, anytime you'd like to. After g is for grids, people liked it. And let me see. Okay. Sorry. I got a stupid pop up from Zoom asking me something.

Anyhow, after g IsForGrids, I decided to go all in, and I created a year long class online called collage alphabet, which is 26 lessons, a new lesson every other week for fifty two weeks, and it's still available as well. It's prerecorded work at your own pace, and you have lifetime access to it if you sign up. And then I just started creating a bunch of courses. And then I started doing some, courses and play dates on Facebook live, and that was fun because when you make a prerecorded course, you don't get, you know, immediate feedback. People watch it or don't watch it, and, you know, sometimes you never hear from them. So I I enjoy doing the Facebook lives because people could make comments and and things like that. And then I discovered, like, doing classes on Zoom where I could see your faces, like today. Today, there are 275 faces looking at me right now, and it just makes me so, so happy, that you are here today, that you're gonna spend, a little bit of time with me making collage. And so, you know, I just I got hooked on, doing classes on Zoom. A little over two years ago, I decided to create a membership because I had people that were signing up for, you know, pretty much any class I decided to do. I was I I'm never gonna run out of ideas. I'm one of those kind of people. And so people were signing up for for everything I was putting out there, or they wouldn't sign up for something because it wasn't they weren't sure if they were gonna like it, and then they'd see what people had created, and they'd be like, oh, I should have signed up for that. And so I created a membership so that everything that I'm doing, basically, you know, you get inside the membership, and you can take it or leave it, but you don't have to choose. And that's really why why I created the membership. And I'll tell you more about that after we make our collages.

So what we are going to do today is what we are going to do today is create six collages in sixty minutes. And that is you know, if we're doing, like, intuitive, just glue anything down. I'm getting really annoyed with Zoom with these pop up things. Sorry, guys. It's like all these all these requests. There are there are 270 other people in the room, so I can't answer, individual questions and things like that, you guys. I I apologize, but I'm one person. I don't have an assistant here, in the room or in the chat. If you've got questions after the the workshop, I am happy to answer them and and happy to, you know, to stay here as as long as I need to. I have removed the doorbell sound. I apologize. I I usually, you know, don't I usually have a waiting room and then just, you know, personally let people in. But with this number of people, I had to had to just let people join as they get here. So, that has been turned off. Like I was saying, we're gonna make six collages in sixty minutes, but it's not gonna be just, like, glue anything down, boom, you know, work intuitively, whatever you feel. We're actually going to, have six mini composition lessons as well. So get a little a little extra here today, and I think we should get started with that. Let me go ahead and spotlight my work table, and I'm gonna come over here. And there are really there aren't any rule rules, but I'm going to give you a couple of guidelines just to try to, make this a better experience for you. Okay? So these aren't rules, but they're gonna make it a little easier to actually complete six collages in sixty minutes. Number one, we're gonna work small because, you know, we've got ten minutes per collage. I am going to be working on four inch by four inch pieces of watercolor paper. You could work in a small sketchbook. You could work on the back of a cereal box, postcard, greeting card, playing card, index card, whatever small surface you'd like to work on. So that's number one. Number two, don't overthink it. Okay? We don't have time to overthink. We don't have time to, you know, move things around too much and go, oh, maybe this, oh, maybe that. There there just isn't time. You you have to just trust your gut and and just kind of go for it. Okay? So don't overthink it. And and the third kind of rule, and this is also related to only having ten minutes per collage, is to really just limit your materials. Okay? I have I have a couple of magazines, a couple of books, and one basket of just random collage papers, and I'm gonna make them work. They may not be exactly what I'm looking for, but I also don't wanna spend, you know, five minutes out of my ten minutes to make a collage. I don't wanna spend five minutes looking for the perfect image. So the first thing that that I come across that I think will work, I'm just gonna go for it. So limit your materials.

So the first collage we are going to make, I'm going to explain the process, and then I'm going to set a timer for ten minutes, and I'm I'm going to create right alongside you. So the first collage is a strata composition, and we are going to if you have neutral papers, that would be great. That's not required. We are not using our scissors for this one. We are just going to tear the paper. And what a strata composition is, if you think back to geology class and all of the layers of the Earth like that. Basically, that's what we're creating. We're gonna take some neutral papers. We're going to tear them into strips, and we are gonna create a layout with all of our strips either going horizontally, or they could go vertically, or you can create it one way and decide you like it the other way. So that is our first collage. I'm gonna grab a four inch by four inch piece of watercolor paper. I have my glue sticks at the ready. I don't need scissors for this one. And here's our timer. I've got ten minutes on the timer.

I will let you know when we're getting close, but we're gonna start our strata now. Neutral papers torn and just layer your strips together. Let's see what I've got here. Thick strips, thin strips, and, of course, they don't have to be, you know, straight. They they can be all wobbly. Neutrals also don't have to be all, black and white and, you know, brown and beige. Neutrals are are any color that's not real saturated. So so, like, this color here, this, old book, that's a real neutral kind of a red there. So that would work. So I'm just tearing strips of paper and gluing them down. There can be space between them. They can overlap. It it's entirely up to you how you want to put this, strata collage together. Got five minutes left on the timer. If you haven't glued anything down yet, now would be a good time to start. And when you feel like you're finished, go ahead and stop. Don't don't overwork it. Go ahead and stop. Give yourself a break until we start the next one. We've got about two minutes left. Two minutes left for our strata collage. It is not frozen. I'm just finished. If you're finished with your collage, just wait until till the next one. Alright. So there's our first collage, and your strata can go horizontally, or you can turn it and look at it vertically. But set that one aside, and we will move on to collage number two. Radial.

We're gonna do a radial composition. And what I want you to do is, first of all, find a focal image, an image that you want to use for this. And I'm just gonna draw this for you. And so we'll say this is a little person that that I wanna use as my focal image, and we are going to then cut before we glue that down, we're gonna cut triangles that radiate off of our focal image. You can go all the way around if you'd like, or you can just, you know, have a few triangles. And, basically, what the triangles are going to be doing is say, hey. Look at me. Look at me. They're gonna draw the eye to your focal point no matter where you put it. So you want a focal image, and then you want a series of triangles. Cut them out of any kind of paper that you'd like, and we're gonna create a radial collage. You'll start the timer ten minutes, and go ahead and find yourself your focal image first, and then put down your triangles. Think I'm gonna use this gal here. Gal in a big chair. So I'm gonna cut her out. Don't overthink it. Go with the first image that that, you know, kind of appeals to you. I'm not saying use use something you don't like, but don't spend a lot of time looking for the perfect image. You can repeat this exercise afterwards, you know, with taking the time to find the perfect image. But the first thing that speaks to you So before you glue your image down, you're gonna wanna cut your triangles, and then you can place your triangles and then place your image over the triangles. But, again, the goal of the triangles or those radial composition is to draw the eye to your focal points. I'm just cutting and placing, but I'm not gluing anything down yet. I wanna see how it all looks together. You can have thick triangles and thin triangles. You can go all the way around, or you could just have a few triangles that are kind of radiating off of your focal points. Got five minutes left for this one at the halfway point. So At this point, I might rearrange my triangles a little bit. Oh, it's too small. And then I'm just going to glue these down. Glue my triangles first, and then I'm gonna place my focal points. Got three minutes left. If you're finished, you can take a little little stretch break or get yourself a little water or coffee or something. Now I'm just gonna glue down my focal point, and I actually want her at an angle there. And then I'm gonna trim around my edges. Two minutes left. And time's up onto our third collage.

Our third collage is going to be a grid composition. And what I want you to do for this one, whatever size you're working in, I'm working on four inch by four inch, I want you to find an image and trim it down to the size of your surface. And then I want you to cut that into squares. So depending on how big your image is, in this case, my four inch by four inch, I'm probably going to cut my image into one inch by one inch squares, and then you're just gonna rearrange them. So I'll show you as I go. I'm gonna start the timer. This one's really easy, and we've got ten minutes. So I've got my four inch by four inch, and I just got a magazine here, and I'm going to try to find an image that will fit on my 4 x 4. And so I'm just gonna hold this over and find an image that I wanna use. That's kinda fun with all the dogs, so I could do that. I'm gonna rip this page out and then I'm just going to decide where this is going. I'm going to trim around my 4 x 4. This can be a real simple image, or it can be, a real complex image. You'll get different results depending on what kind of image you choose. So here's my image, same size as my four inch by four inch substrate, and I'm not gonna do any measuring here. I'm just going to cut this in half, and then I'm gonna cut this this piece in half, and I'm gonna cut the first one in half. That should give me four different strips. Then I'm gonna put them together and do the same thing. I've got my four strips. Doesn't have to be exact. We don't have to measure. Gonna cut that in half. Cut that in half. One thing you do wanna do is keep all of your if it's a magazine image, keep them all facing the same way so you're using that instead of some of the back. So just hanging on to it as I do that. And then this last little piece, I'm gonna cut those in half as well. And so now I have 16 little squares, and I'm gonna just mix them up a little bit and pick one to get started. And I'm just gonna glue them down, rearranged on my 4 x 4. And after you place the first one, you can you can kinda decide, you know, what what goes next to it. You know, if I don't want all of the dogs face up, I could turn one of them here and glue it down. And you can kind of fudge it if your if your squares aren't exactly square. That's okay. So now I'm gonna go with this kind of plain colored piece, and then some I don't know if it's the dog's tail or and they're not gonna fit together perfectly unless unless you, you know, take out your ruler and measure the lines. It's gonna be a little wonky, but that kinda adds to the interest. And so I'm just picking and choosing. I want different things next to different things. I don't want dark squares next to dark squares, and, I don't want all the faces of the dogs next to each other. I wanna wanna mix it up. Now I'm kind of auditioning things for the right placement. We've got five minutes left, so you should be maybe halfway done. If you're done already, you can take a little break. Three minutes to go. Three minutes to finish your grid collage. I'm liking how this turned out with the dog faces. Every way you look, there's a little puppy looking at you. Two minutes. Two minutes to go. If you're done with your grid already, you might just stand up and stretch a little bit. We're almost halfway through our six collages in sixty minutes. Three more to go. It's funny. Sometimes it seems like the timer goes way too fast, and sometimes it feels like it's not moving at all. And we've got one minute left. One minute left to finish your grid. Cut it out and glue it down. Alright. Time's up. That's it for the grid collage.

On to number four. It's been around me a while. No. So this is this is a composition I return to over and over again. It's called the cruciform. And a cruciform basically means across. And so if this is our collage, a cruciform is going to have a horizontal and a vertical. I'm gonna do this in pencil because you might wanna just do that, and that's kinda boring. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a strong vertical, but it's not going to be in the center, and it can be at an angle. So there's my strong vertical and then a strong horizontal. Again, boring if it's in the center and straight across. So I'm gonna do this maybe this way. So I've got four different sections. I've got my cruciform, and the goal for a cruciform composition is that you have four separate and distinct quadrants, but that they all work together. Now this doesn't mean that this is one piece of paper. This is one piece of paper. This is one piece. This is one piece. This section could be made up with, you know, a bunch of different paper. This might have an image over here or something. This might be, just a pattern paper, and then this might be, you know, something layered, that sort of thing. But, basically, you want four separate quadrants. You want a strong horizontal and a strong vertical. Okay? And you can draw your cruciform before you start. You can pencil it in, or you can just start piecing together the four sections. So we've got ten minutes on the clock for this one. And go. Again, I have a little four inch by four inch. You want the four quadrants to, be be different than each other, but you want it to all work together as well. So just by if if I started with this piece, then my horizontal could be going like this, and my vertical could be going like that. So we'll see see how it turns out. That's where I'm gonna start. This one, I'm gonna give a little bit of thought to the overall piece before I really start gluing things down. I'm gonna gonna probably make some decisions, and then when I look and see how it all works together, I may change my mind. This can be either abstract or you can use images if you'd like. Colors, patterns, images. And we're at the halfway point. We're five minutes left. Alright. Four minutes to go, and I'm finally starting to glue something down. I might have just overthought this one a little bit, but it's going to be okay. Two minutes to go. Two minutes left for your cruciform. There is this strong vertical and this strong horizontal. It kinda meanders, but that's okay. I've got four separate quadrants, something a little bit different happening in each of the four sections, but then it works together as a whole. If you want, and you can go back and do this, you could accentuate your horizontal and your vertical. You could go in with, paint or a marker or, another strip of paper and and make the the divisions more pronounced, or you can you know? I'm real happy with how this turned out. I don't know exactly what it means. Got less than a minute to go. I've got beads, the Statue Of Liberty, Hershey's bar, and some different bits of text. But I I like that the colors all work really well together, and time is up for our cruciform. That's our fourth collage today.

On to number five. Number five, we're gonna create a landscape. And things I want you to think about when you create a landscape, Oops. Background, foreground, and middle ground. So we've got three areas. And again, I'm gonna pull out the pencil and show you what would be boring. It would be boring if this was divided into three equal pieces. Right? Background, middle ground, foreground. So what you wanna do is you wanna avoid that. You wanna avoid having your horizon line for this landscape, like, right in the center, just bisecting it. And so let's see. Maybe I want a really big background and a skinny little middle ground, and then this section is the foreground. And our lines don't have to be horizontal either. So maybe maybe they're mountains. Maybe there's a river or a road or something that runs down through here. So b, you know, think a little creatively about how this might look like a real place or an imaginary place. You can you can add, you know, little details there in the middle ground. You could add little details in the foreground. But, basically, we're just creating a simple landscape in ten minutes. So I'm gonna start the timer. Again, I've got a four inch by four inch piece of watercolor paper, and let's see what we can find here today. This is kinda cheating, but I'm gonna take my sky out of this actual landscape because I really like the rain coming down. Set that aside, see what else I can come up with. Background, middle ground, and foreground. I just happened to pull a child craft book, world and space, but this one seems to be a lot about the Earth. So I'm I'm seeing a lot of landscapes, seascapes, mountains, sky. Maybe my theme is weather. Got the rain. Got some big snowflakes. And kind of a rainbow. Let's see what what I can do with that. Background, middle ground, and foreground. I think that's a start. And we got five minutes to go halfway through our little abstract landscape, creating a background, a middle ground, and a foreground. So trimmed my edges. Now oh, I put that upside down from how I created it, but I I kinda like it. I think I like it better upside down. Alright. Now the snow is my background and the lines for the rain, my foreground. And at this point, this is this is where you can add some extra little details. You could add trees or houses or buildings, rivers or roads or what whatever you want. So let me some more images to add in here. I think I'm gonna add a sun. We've got about three minutes left. Think I'm gonna add a little house, maybe. Got these cute little squares there. Yeah. I'm gonna add a little house. Two minutes to go. One minute left for your landscape. Background, middle ground, and foreground. Yeah. I'm really kinda happy with this weird little thing that I initially designed to be upside down. And time is up, so we're done with our landscape.

We are on to collage number six, our final collage. We're going to choose a color palette. Okay? And you can choose let's keep this really simple. You can choose a warm color palette or a cool color palette. So warm is your reds, your oranges, your yellows, bright and warm. Cool is your blues, your greens, and your purples. So pick warm or cool. And then as far as the composition goes for this one, this one's gonna be freestyle. Do what you want to do within your chosen color palette. Pick warm or cool, and we've got ten minutes to go. Timer started. And I've got my final four inch by four inch piece of paper. And because it was so cold this morning in South Texas, I am going to do a warm color palette, reds, oranges, yellows. So let me just pull some out. Got some scraps on my table already from the last collage. We've got some oranges, some yellows. That, red. Here we go. I'm going with red, orange, yellow, but you can go with your cool colors, your blues, greens, purples, entirely up to you. And whatever kind of composition or collage you want to create today for this final six and sixty collage. My goodness. Looks like I'm making another landscape. We'll see. I'm liking these these red papers. Now I'm just playing around with these to see see how they look. I'm gonna probably not use all these scraps that I'm placing right now. I definitely wanna keep some oranges in there, maybe some yellow. Okay. Sometimes it's just like start gluing and see where it goes. So I think that's what I'm going to do. Don't overthink it. Just see where see where the papers take you. Find papers in your color palette and see where where they want to be. And we got five minutes left, you guys. There are definitely some warm colors. I'm I'm feeling the heat. Oops. And feel free if it feels done, feel free to step away. Alright. We got two minutes left, you guys. We're in the home stretch. You will have just created six collages in sixty minutes and learned a thing or two about composition. How cool is that? I'm not sure which direction this one goes. That's the way I created it. Mhmm. Well, we'll see. K. Time is almost up. Are you ready? Ready to see what we've done here? Alright. That's it. Time's up with our final warm or cool palette. And let me flip back to six and sixty. We have created what have we created here? My goodness.

We started with the strata collage in neutrals, basically strips of paper lined up. We did a radial collage where these triangles are radiating off of our focal image. We took one image, cut it up, and rearranged it in a grid composition. And then we created a cruciform, which has a strong vertical, a strong horizontal, four very different and distinct quadrants that all work together as a whole. And then we created a little abstract landscape with a background, a foreground, and a middle ground. And then we picked a warm or cool color palette and just kinda did whatever we wanted to do with that. Six collages in sixty minutes. I want you to congratulate yourself, and I want you to also tell me what was your favorite composition. Tell me in the chat. I've seen all sorts of really cool comments kinda flying by, so I'm not gonna see them all today. But those of you that joined and and missed a couple of these, the replay, I'll be sending out a link to the replay as soon as I've got it all posted on the website, and you can watch the replay for seven days. And I noticed somebody said, what happens after seven days? Well, I'm gonna tell you about our membership program. And after seven days, I'm going to put a an edited recording of this, into the membership. And so you can watch it whenever you need a little boost. This is probably the sixth or seventh time I've done this little challenge. And holy cow, guys. Even though I know what is coming next, I'm just always just so surprised by what happens when you do this with a timer going with limited supplies. So I'm just gonna go through here quickly, see what's in the comments. Tell me what your favorite one was. Yes. The replay will be posted on the freebie page, or it will be explore.collagelab.com/freeworkshop, the same link that you used to sign up here. But I'll I'll send that all in an email for you. Definitely fun. Yes. And you can do it over and over again. It's it's the structure. It really is. Somebody asked about my glue stick, and somebody asked about the coffee filter. I I I use all kinds of glue sticks, and I generally only use glue sticks, like, for quick collages like this or in my sketchbook when I'm just working out an idea. I I otherwise use acrylic medium and things like that. But when I'm using a glue stick, today, I'm using a Scotch permanent glue stick. I've also well, I had some others pulled out. This is one that that I've been using for a while. It's called Gloo, g l o o, and it's kinda fun. It's, my problem with it is I never remember which is the top and the bottom. And it's it's a little square, and it it's blue. It's one of those that goes down with color, and then it disappears. These are both archival permanent glue sticks. That's really all you need to look for. Archival, so it doesn't damage your paper over time. And permanent is good if you don't want it to fall apart. Right? Coffee filters. I use coffee filters as a gluing surface. I know a lot of people use, junk mail catalogs and things like that and then just flip the page and, start a new page when they're when they're gluing. I, number one, don't get a lot of junk mail. We have a PO box, and for whatever reason, they don't like to sort junk mail. I think they just throw it all away, honestly. So I don't get a lot of junk mail catalogs, and I've never had real good luck with them. I end up getting things stuck to the images of the catalog. And so coffee filters, kind of a porous surface. I was gluing on this one all day today, made those six collages, and it kinda sucks up the glue. It's no longer sticky. So I can use it over and over again. And then when it does get sticky and, you know, I can throw it away because I I buy, like, 250 of them for a dollar or something like that. I use these when I'm teaching in person. I give everybody a stack of coffee filters. That way, they're not getting their work surface sticky, and it's just that's that's just my thing. So let me see if let me go full screen here. And, yes, these make great warm up exercises. And the not overthinking and having a timer going, whether it's five minutes or ten minutes, really forces you to just do it. So thank you. Thank you for all the kind comments. So much fun on a snowy day. Gosh, guys. I had to turn off the heater in here, halfway through those collages. It was starting to get really warm. I don't I'm sure it's cold outside, but, I'm so glad you chose this as your first instruction in collage too. Thank you for being here. Okay. As far as favorites go, grid, strata, grid, the focal point, grid, the Statue Of Liberty, the radio, the strata. Someone says this is the coolest webinar. Thank you. Great ideas. Enjoyed the workshop. Like the strata, strata, strata. Really like the cruciform and the strata. Radial, radial, landscape, grid, radial, focal point, cruciform, the neutral, the landscape, the landscape, radial and grid. Holy cow. There's 74 new comments after that. I can't I can't read them all, guys.

So I told you if you stuck around till the end, there'd be some prizes and special offers and all of that good stuff. So let me do a little screen share. Let me do a little song and dance, and hopefully, I'll answer all of your questions about the Lab Rats membership. And I'll be totally honest with you guys. We actually had a big old rebranding epiphany or whatever happened on Friday, like, two days ago, I decided that we we used to call the two levels of the membership, the essentials and the mini membership. And, honestly, that might have worked when I started this two and a half years ago, the membership, but the mini membership is a full membership full of all sorts of stuff, and I'm gonna tell you all about that. And the essentials, which I, you know, was like, okay. There's the mini membership, and then there's the essentials. The essentials is, like, everything plus. And so so there was a bit of a disconnect with the naming, and it was also just time to to kinda grow up as a membership. Lab rats, we are all still lab rats, and that was a name suggested by one of our members about a year and a half ago. I think when I when I got my hand painted lab coat, which, you know, why it took me five years to realize that collage lab and a lab coat was, you know, a good idea. So they call themselves the lab rats, and they embrace that name. I I embrace it as well. I think it's really a fun name for the membership, and it is the nicest group of people you are ever going to want to meet. So you may think I'm kinda cool, and you may have had fun in this workshop. But, honestly, if you join our membership, what's going to make you stick around is your fellow lab rats. Okay? It's not about me. It's about this amazing, amazing community. So, anyhow, the rebranding, just had to get rid of that mini in essentials. And I thought about it, and I thought, you know, this is a lab. We are experimental. We we learn all sorts of things. We try all sorts of things. We challenge ourselves, and and we make kind of magic out of paper. You know, two or three pieces of paper, and we've created something totally different. And so I came up with the alchemists. And so I have a super duper early bird special offer for you to join the collage lab alchemist. A little bit about the two levels. Alchemy Foundations is our core membership program, and that is open all the time. You can join today. You can join next week. You can join next month. Whenever you want to join that, you absolutely can. The current price for out and I'm gonna be all upfront with you guys because that's how I work. The the current price for Alchemy Foundations is $14 a month, and I'll tell you what's included in it. You can also get a special deal, a $140 for a year. So you're getting twelve months for the price of 10. $14 a month, there's so much in the foundation's membership. Elevated Alchemy, the other membership, is is a more extended membership program. It in it includes everything in foundations. And the big difference there are a couple little bonuses, but the big difference is the elevated alchemy level gets a quarterly master class. And so each month, we get together twice a month, and we focus on the same thing for three months. So January, February, March, we get together six times for a real intensive master class focusing on different techniques or different approaches to collage, new materials, things like that. That's the main difference, you guys. The difference in price, the elevated is $30 a month. And so $14 for the foundations, 30 for the elevated. But, honestly, guys, these five and six session intensives, I used to charge at least 200, $300 for. So you are getting those for $16 a month more than foundations. So if you do the math, it's it's a no brainer. But I would be happy to welcome you into either level. Now I said alchemy foundations, you can join anytime. It's on the website listed with all the classes. $14 a month or a $140 a year come whenever you want to. The elevated, I open and close the doors for. And that's not a it's not a business y reason because, honestly, nobody likes doing launches and countdown timers and all of that. But what I found is, number one, it makes me makes me do things like this workshop and get a bunch of new people in the room. You know? When I when I open the doors two or three or three or four times a year, it makes me get a bunch of people in the room that that have never heard of me. And the other thing is you are joining at the same time as a bunch of other people that are brand new. And so if you think about it, it's like if you moved when you were younger and you were able to start school as the new kid, but it was the beginning of the school year. And so everybody was kinda new. You know? Whether whether they had just moved there over the summer or whether they, you know, were switching schools or whether it was just like, you know, it's the first day of fifth grade. It's you know, everybody is brand new on that day. The the difference between that and then if you transferred schools in the middle of the school year, you don't have anything in common. Nobody remembers what it was like to be, you know, the new person if you transfer into a new class in the February. Right? And so that's the main reason I've kept doors open, doors closed for this elevated membership program because I see the connections and the helpfulness, and and and we can focus more on welcoming you all at once. I'll do a special new members welcome, the February, and you can get to know the other people in the membership. You can get to know the ones that have been around for a while, and you can get to know the ones that are starting at the same time as you. So what we're gonna talk about mainly today is this elevated alchemy, and there's a little comparison chart on the website that I'll give you a link in a minute, but it basically breaks down what's included at $14 a month, what's included at $30 a month. Okay? And and there's actually a a problem on here because I decided this bonus new workshop, everybody's going to get. So either foundations or elevated, you'll get that. The the main difference, if you join the $30 a month level, you will get the live master classes, four of those each year, and you'll get a full library of the past two years of master classes. And you can dive into those whenever you want. Also as a little extra bonus for the $30 a month level, you get access to the collage alphabet class, which, regular price for that is a $180. If you already have collage alphabet, that's fine because you have lifetime access to it if you purchased it. It. If you get it through the membership, you only have it for as long as you are a member. So I've got a special offer for you today through Tuesday. So forty eight hours from now, you can join the elevated alchemy thirteen months for the price of 10. So an extra bonus month there. And these are the lab rats, some of them. They're a fun, fun group of people, and they're super helpful and super kind and patient. And so each each month in the membership, and this is both levels, each month we get together, and we have the ignite monthly challenge. We try to do this near the first of the month. I issue a challenge for that month. It can be a simple prompt. It can be a certain material. It can be a certain color palette, something like that. You've got all month to make one or more, collages about that challenge. And then you submit them or share them in our forum. And at the end of the month, I gather them up, and each month, we review all the submissions. I make a little slideshow, and then I tell you what the new the new challenge is. Once a month, we also get together, and these are all on Zoom. They're all live, and you have access to all the replays. So once a month, we get together for coffee and collage. I pick a topic, and we have a discussion. There's no collaging going on, no glue stick, grab your coffee. You can still be in your bathrobe if you want, but it is the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of like minded people. And in the past, we have we have talked about, collage challenges. We've talked about collage communities. We've talked about AI. We've talked about social media. We talked about planning a creative year. We share resources. So coffee and collage is it's amazing. And so if you join today, you're going to have two and a half years of previous conversations that you can listen to whenever you'd like. Then we also have a event called expand. Initially, expand, for the first twenty six, months of it, we went back to the collage alphabet class, and I came up with a new project for each letter of the alphabet. So we would go back to a is for accordion, and most of most of the people when we first started the membership had been through collage alphabet. If you join today, you'll have access to that, and then I would just come up with a new project. Well, we've run through the alphabet, and so now we are getting creative. But, basically, this is a monthly project based easy tutorial, about half the time. And I started just on Friday, we brought our first guest artist into the membership. And we we brought in, a guest artist that taught our members how to make easy digital collage, with a free app. You can watch the replay. You can jump right in with that. I have plans to bring, six guest artists in a year for this expand program. So it's not all Kelly all the time going forward. And then there's the elevate. That's only in the elevated alchemy level. But those are our deep dives, and there are a bunch. There's well, there's eight of them that you can watch the replays of, or you can jump in where we're at right now. All members also can participate in anytime coworking where I give you a Zoom link, and you can hang out with other members anytime. And it's a really great opportunity to just hang out in collage, chat amongst other members. If you're new, it's a great time to ask questions of other members. We do quarterly swaps or collaborations. Those are optional each quarter. I'll tell you what the Swapp or collaboration is, and you can decide if you wanna participate. And then there's bonuses and things like that. Why now is the best time to join our community? These are the Elevate master classes in 2026. We just had our first session of wax and paper fusion. This is a deep dive into using, encaustic wax, but we'll also have some, examples using just beeswax and a little side trip using cold wax. But it's basically how they work really well with collage. The second intensive this year, which will be, April, May, and June, is really an expansion of what we did today. It's called principles and practice, and it's a composition class. You'll also find some composition classes from previous years in your library right away when you join. And I feel like my my approach to composition. Every time I teach it, I I bring in new ways of learning and new ways of creating. So we're gonna be looking at art principles and how we actually apply them to our collage practice. And then we're going to, do a deep dive and create a one of a kind artist book that'll be July, August, and September of this year, using mixed media techniques and some new, materials. And the final sessions of 2026, October, November, December, Paper fabric fodder, we will be creating all kinds of unique papers using fabric and just making a bunch of fodder and using it in collage. So those are the intensives for this year. You can see a list of all of the previous ones, on the sales page, which I'll send you to in a minute. And, basically, you know, you don't have to be experienced to enjoy our membership. Several of our our members have been making a lot longer than I have. Jerry joined us last year and really was really a beginner. Her experience was doing the fibrillation challenge, and she didn't know much about techniques. And she joined us, and and she's just blowing it out of the water now. Mary had no art experience whatsoever when she joined us. And Mary, she's been with us about a year and a half now. Mary is like a sponge. She just wants to try everything, and she is having so much fun and learning so much and just doing amazing work. Julie Welsh has been with us since the beginning. You'll see these on the sales page. Anne Carraza has been with us for a very long time. Her comment, I'm creating way more art. I think she made something like 90 pieces in the first couple of months of 2025. She uses the membership as inspiration and accountability to make stuff. Lila's been with us since the beginning as well, and she is another one that anything I throw at them, they just embrace it and give it give it their best try and amazing results. Corinna has been with us for a little over a year. She's in Germany, and she is just really honed in on her collage practice since she joined the membership. Tippi's been with us for a very long time as well, and she really appreciates the community. And and there are several of our members that, you know, life gets in the way. When when you're in a membership, you know, things happen or you go on vacation or you miss a class or you're in a challenging time zone, and we've got the replays available. And so when you've got time, you jump into the replays. We've got a private forum so you can ask questions about what ever you're working on, even if it was a class from two years ago. And people will jump in there or I'll jump in there and and help you out. So we've got the this private forum. It is on our website, and we share what we're creating in the classes. We share opportunities with each other. We we that's how we arrange for you know, does anybody wanna do coworking? I'm gonna jump on Zoom. So we've got the Lab Rats forum. And, last year, I added, Lab Rats ambassadors. And so these are people that have been around for a while. And if you become a new member, they're gonna act like the welcome wagon. They're going to host special co working sessions. They're going to answer your questions in the forum. They may connect with you one on one if that's what you're looking for, but they're they're there to make it really easy for you to find your way around and to answer any questions at all. They they know, the classes. They know my teaching style, and they are and and they're all really great collage artists. So they they can give you a lot of tips and tricks as well. When you join the membership, there's a a little survey where you kinda talk about what you wanna get out of it, and then you add up your little score. And I've created these success paths, so you kinda know where to start. And so, that's all explained once you get inside the membership as well. So giveaway time. Before I before I talk about all of the offers, I wanna do a giveaway. I wanna give away a three month membership. And what I'm gonna do my goodness. There are 5,000 bazillion comments in here. If you're commenting, that tells me that you are active and engaged here. And so I am going to cover my eyes. I've got my hand on the mouse, and I am going to scroll up and down through the comments. And wherever I set my mouse down is going to be the person that wins three months in the membership. If you're currently in the membership already, you get an additional three months free. I'll just add it on. So closing my eyes, scrolling scrolling through the comments, up and down, and, I mean, some of these comments I haven't even read yet, and I'm putting my mouse where is my mouse?

Heather j. Detroit we are here too is the comment that Heather j made. Heather, please send me an email, kelly@collagelab.com, and I will take care of getting you three months in the extended, alchemy elevated alchemy. I told you. I just changed the name. Three months free membership email. I'm gonna put my email address in the comments so that you don't miss out. Heather j. Congratulations. I need to take notes as well so I remember. Heather j. Okay. Awesome. Congratulations, Heather.

Let me share with you now the special offers I have for you. Special offer number one, thirteen months in the elevated, the one we're opening the doors for, thirteen months for the price of 10. So that's $300 for thirteen months in the membership. And that offer is good for the next forty eight hours, Tuesday, 5PM central. I'll send you an email with all this info as well. If you join today while we're here right now before we leave, you're going to get a free one on one bonus coaching. You're gonna get $50 in LabLoot, which is kinda like it's kinda like monopoly money, but you can spend it on any courses at CollageLab, and you could spend it on, additional coaching sessions and things like that. And you'll also get access. All members are gonna get access to a new workshop that's happening live on Friday. So if you join today, you can you can get all of these things at any level. Any level. So for $14, if you join while we're live here today, you're going to get a one on one coaching session with me. Join by Tuesday. You will get $50 of lab loot. You'll get that new workshop on Friday, and you can get you don't have to do the annual. But if you wanna do the annual, you get thirteen months if you join by Tuesday at 5PM. Join by Thursday if you want to attend the free workshop live on Friday. You're gonna get it in your, in your membership whether you're whether you join by Thursday or not. But if you join by Thursday, you can join us live on Friday. And so let me put some links in the comments for you. First of all, here's here's the link to join. And like I said, you get you get extra special bonuses if you join me while we're still live here today or within five minutes of, you know, logging off, I'll I'll honor that as well. And that's the the big bonus if you do it live is you get, an hour one on one coaching with me, and it doesn't have to be right away. Like, you know, join the membership. Let me get to know you for for a few months, and then you can book your your, one on one coaching session. The doors will be closing next Sunday. So people that are watching on the replay, you have until February 1 to watch the replay, and you have till February 1 to join the elevated. Amoose Boosh is not part of the membership. That is separate. But if you if you joined Amoose Boosh, like, for the Black Friday sale and you got some LabLoot, you can apply LabLoot to your first membership payment. That's the only time you can use LabLoot on a membership. Is monthly month to month payment, or must I do EFT on a credit card, how to cancel if I can't continue past a month? All of the memberships are canceled anytime. And so if you join today and you decide it's not for you, then you just cancel before that month is up. If you join for annual, you are stuck for a year, but you can cancel, and it won't renew a year or thirteen months from now. If you sign up for monthly, you can cancel anytime before the next payment processes. You do need to, enter a credit card. I I believe it's the only way to do that. It's processed through Stripe, and you do need to enter that because in order to get all this good stuff, it is a subscription. It's like Netflix. Okay? So they need to my my my platform needs to have a card on file to charge you every month or to charge you when you renew in a year. So a amuse bouche is a separate class. It currently has a $50 off coupon if you, go through the link on the home page or go to explore.collagelab.com/amoose. And that is a year long class that you have lifetime access to. To. So that's a one time payment. So with the coupon, that's a $147. And we are doing a new lesson every week for fifty two weeks, and it and it just started. Take a look at the website. I'll put the link in for Amoose Bush if you want to find out more about it. It just started, January, so we've done three projects so far. There'll be a new project tomorrow. Oops. I'm going to put this link here. This should have the coupon already applied. Do we get one on one if you're doing monthly foundation? If you if you sign up while we're still live here today, yes. Anything. So that's the deal that's the deal of a lifetime. $14 and you get you get in a one hour coaching session, because why not? Right? See if there are other questions here. Monthly, month to month, how to cancel. If you can't continue past a month, you can either send me an email or there is a place when you log in for your profile, you can update your credit card there or cancel. Easy peasy. And I I will help you through with that. Massive value for a free workshop. Thank you so much. And let me see. Is there anything else that I was going to tell you? So the thirteen months for the price of 10, that expires Tuesday. The $50 lab loot, that expires Tuesday. Tuesday, 5PM central. New workshop on Friday. If you wanna attend that live, then sign up by 5PM on Thursday so that you can attend it live. But the doors actually don't close until next Sunday, February 1. So you can watch the replay. You can think about it. You can email me with questions, and I will happily happily, answer them. Sarah Cooper says the Moose Bush is awesome. Really enjoying it. Oh, I know what I didn't tell you.

If you would like to share your six and sixty collages, please join our Facebook group. I just put the link in there. I'll put that. Once once the replay's ready to watch, I'll send you guys an email with the link, and I will remember to put the Facebook group link in there as well. And I will put a post in the Facebook group that everybody that did six and sixty, you could you can post all of your collages under the same link so that you can see everything that everybody created today. I know I'm not seeing all the comments just because there are so many of you, and I'm so, so happy that you're here. I'm so happy there are so many of you still here. It is five zero seven. I went seven minutes longer than than I planned, and but that's okay. We're really flexible. If there are other questions, please email me. And that's email is always the best way to get ahold of me. I do not always see Messenger or DMs on Instagram. I kinda personally hate social media, and so sometimes there are 10,000 messages waiting for me there. So if you need to get a hold of me, if you've got questions, especially if they're time sensitive because you wanna get some of these bonuses, feel free to send me an email and I will get back to you as quick as I can. Again, I'm a one person business, so I'm the one that's emailing you back. Awesome. That is all I have, you guys. I'm so happy you joined me today. I'm so happy you created with me today, and I just I wanna thank you. And if you are brand new here, I want to welcome you to CollageLab. I hope you hope you stick around. And I if it's the right time for you, I would love to invite you to join our membership. Alright. That's all I got, and I am going to sign off. Again, thank you all so so much. Sarah Cooper just joined. Thank you, Sarah Cooper. Excellent. Excellent. Alright. And like I said, the foundations is open all the time. So if if now isn't the right time, I understand. It's okay. Thanks again for being here. I appreciate all of you. And I will be emailing you with more information and the replay and the Facebook group and more about the membership. But if if you're curious about the membership, go ahead and and take a look at that, sales page. It's got a lot of information about what detailed is inside there. Thank you. Thank you.