My original Archetypes series (2009–) came from pure experimentation when I was preparing to teach at university a digital collage workshop as an into to using Adobe Photoshop.

Archetypes - image 1 - student project

I was looking for some source images for demonstration when I came across an image of a deer and a range of super interesting geometric shapes. As I love animals, space, geometry, psychology and M.C. Escher, I decided to put these themes together — and the whole series was born!

Archetypes - image 2 - student project

I am fascinated about how using animal illustrations and geometric shapes together creates a strong visual juxtaposition of organic versus geometric forms on one hand, and just highlights the magic of nature and creatures on the other! Animal archetypes is a powerful concept which is easy to relate to: one way or the other we identify ourselves with the specific animals, and this project is a different way of looking at our own nature.

When I decided to embark on updating this class, I thought it would be a good idea to create a new collage in the same series, but whilst experimenting I decided to take it further to make it feel a bit more like what I’d make now, not years ago!

Archetypes - image 3 - student project

Archetypes - image 4 - student project

After creating the collage I have shown in the class, I also created an alternative horizontal version for the lesson titles, and I actually like it even more compositionally! And it is also quite fun to have gone from the porcupine floating in space to the one that has landed — and the fact that you can use exactly the same elements and arrange them differently to change the narrative is one of the reasons why I love collages so much!

I also still cannot decide whether I prefer the acidic green or the alternative colour version — please let me know your thoughts!

Archetypes - image 5 - student project

Then I still wanted to see if I can reverse-engineer my new collage into something resembling the original series, which I just about managed (good that I still kept all of the PSDs from the years ago).

But then decided to elevate the look whilst keeping the good old composition and elements and used the colouring and texturing approach from the class to create a bolder design (plus I changed the type treatment & what’s written on the design).

Seeing how this piece changed with a bit of colour work and texturing makes me want to go and update all of the original designs as well, which I might do soon — so stay tuned if you want to see how they turn out!

Archetypes - image 6 - student project

Hope that having this little glance behind the scenes and reading my insights will inspire you to have a lot of fun creating your own collages and try some alternative versions, too!

Cannot wait to see what you create!

—Evgeniya

P.S. A closer view of collages from the original series:

Archetypes - image 7 - student project

Archetypes - image 8 - student project

Archetypes - image 9 - student project

Archetypes - image 10 - student project

Archetypes - image 11 - student project

Archetypes - image 12 - student project

View Archetypes Series on Behance

Paper & Digital Collage: Shapes, Colors, and Flowers

Mar 23 - Apr 20

Paper & Digital Collage: Shapes, Colors, and Flowers

Mar 23 - Apr 20