What Makes a Muzy Drawing Useful?

Posted: February 26th, 2010 | Author: 1918underwood | Filed under: Collage Components, Collaging, Intermediate Tips for Muzy's Website, Tutorials | Tags: collage, Collage Components, collage elements, Drawing, Intermediate, opacity, transparency, tutorial | No Comments »

Muzy is more than a drawing tool. It’s a collage tool. That makes it unique. That doesn’t mean Muzy can’t or shouldn’t or isn’t used as a drawing tool. It’s a great drawing tool, too. But the social aspect of Muzy is about interacting with other people’s drawings, and creating interesting and exciting collages by using objects in new ways. Part of the Muzy experience is drawing items to be used, not just for their own sake. Of course, the added bonus is that, when people use your drawings, you’ll earn Muzy karma… and having lots of karma is always a good thing.

So, assuming you want your drawing to be useful, what will make it useful? Well, here are a few tips.

Try drawing backgrounds.

A background is like an empty drawing. It’s made to add other elements into. Backgrounds are useful as a starting place for any inspired collager. A background could simply be a color, or it could be a pattern or design, or a backdrop of a room or landscape or cityscape.

Typically, backgrounds fill the screen, with no blank space. A good way to start is by filling the screen with white or a color, so that you don’t have any empty pixels. Click the checkbox for “background preview” to make sure your canvas is filled. This will show you a gray checkerboard pattern wherever there isn’t any color on the canvas.

Try drawing frames.

A frame is a little like a background. It’s meant to go around your drawing on the edges, like a picture frame. Frames can be any kind of decoration: a picture frame, or theater curtains, a window frame or curtains, flowers, or an abstract design. Unlike a background, a frame needs to be clear in the center, not white, so that you can place it over another drawing.

Try drawing simple shapes or basic building blocks.

Creative collagers need very simple, basic things, like squares and circles, to let their imagination run. These items aren’t meant for any particular purpose, and they don’t have much stylization. They can fit into many collage concepts, and they can be manipulated in many ways through resizing, rotating, repeating, and all the Muzy collage techniques. Simple shapes aren’t hard to make, but they’re fun to use. For maximum usefulness, be sure your shape doesn’t have stray marks or a white background around it…

Try drawing textures or patterns that can be applied to different objects or used on their own.

Like simple shapes, patterns an textures are useful for collagers. They can be adapted as backgrounds or applied to objects, or used to make new objects. Metallic textures, patterns of color or lines, lace, polka dots or stripes, checkerboards, fabric textures, wood grains, or natural textures like dirt or grass are all good examples.

Try drawing a free-standing, complete object.

Independent elements are meant to be pulled into a collage. They could be anything: a person, an animal, an object, a building, or a plant. The key to drawing an object is to make it free-standing… that is, alone, with no background. Your object should be on an opaque background, without extra white areas, so that a collager can place it onto a background or use it with other elements. The other side of this is that your object should be complete. If the top is cut off by the edge of the Muzy canvas, someone who wants to resize your drawing and put it on a background will be missing the top. Again, use the “background preview” to check and make sure your drawing isn’t transparent or opaque in the wrong places.

Try drawing a funny character.

Characters are useful to put into a scene. Collagers like them, to make story panels or animation. So, come up with a funny, interesting, or unique character that collagers can make a story around. Like any person, animal, or object, avoid any transparent areas (unless they’re something transparent like wings), and draw the complete character, with no parts cut off. Also avoid having extra white around your character, so it can be easily inserted into a background.

Try drawing smaller elements, or parts of things.

Small, interchangeable elements give a collager a lot of freedom to create a drawing. Noses, eyes, hands, jewelry, post-it notes, knobs, keyholes, leafs, petals, or other small parts are great elements for collaging.

Try drawing an alphabet or a set of things that go together.

An alphabet set gives a collager a way to add words to a drawing. A set of letters that are all in the same style give a lot of freedom for collagers to express themselves. But alphabets aren’t the only sets that can be useful. Anything that could be used together is a good idea. Draw a line of mix-and-match clothing, or a chess set and board (plus a couple of checkers for versatility), or Legos, or different values of money, or a series of flowers… Anything that’s a set is great for Muzy collagers.

Have you got other ideas for useful draws? Post a comment.

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