The Bottom Line
Pros
- Focused on mixed media techniques involving paint, photos, paper, fabric, collage items.
- Packed with lots of creative ideas and projects for you to try.
- Explains how to make projects, but also gives insight into the artist's creative processes.
- Each project contains a list of the materials you'll need to make it.
- Will provide inspiration for art journaling.
Cons
- International subscription is expensive, as are back issues.
- Not for fine-art purists.
Description
- Published six times a year, from Interweave Press
- Contents includes projects, artist profiles, creative ideas. See for example: Table of Contents Issue 20
- Reader challenges give you a chance to get your work featured in a future edition (without payment).
Guide Review - Review: Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine
This magazine could really be called "Cloth Paper Scissors Paint Pencil Printing Photos Words Glue Thread Buttons Cardboard Canvas Etc", though that would be impractical to put on a cover. Its focus is mixed media, combining fine art and craft techniques without worrying where the one supposedly starts and the other stops.
If you like "artistic discovery" (the magazine's subtitle), art journaling, and pushing the boundaries of where art and craft techniques meet, you'll find a bundle of projects to try and inspiration to apply to your own art. If you're a fine-art purist who likes only traditional-style painting on canvas, best stay away.
There's a mixture of projects with step-by-step instructions and tips, profiles of mixed-media artists and their work, and interviews. The photos are printed at a size where it's possible to see a lot of detail, but the project instructions don't take you by the hand and show/tell you every single step. For example, on a collage project featuring dogs, instructions include: "Tear papers for new legs, paint their faces, or create new outfits for the dogs". It's a nice balance between guidance and requiring a spirit of discovery.
I was pleased to see the magazine addressing image copyright upfront and clearly, as it can be such a thorny issue when it comes to collage and assemblage. Not only was there an Editor's Note in a project where photos from another magazine were used (stating that permission had been obtained and encouraging you to use copyright-free images to avoid any risk of copyright violation), but the submission guidelines also include a very clear paragraph about copyright.
