Bricolage – A construction or artwork using only found materials

(Pronounced brik-uh-laazh)

To remember what bricolage means, recall the following mnemonic:

I found a brick which was covered in camouflage (bricolage) and it made a perfect centrepiece for my artwork made from found materials.

Bricolage artwork can consist of flat work or sculpture, as long as it is a collection of found objects displayed as a new 'artwork'. Many of the pieces create new forms or images, using the found items as a medium to show lines and details, as you would paint on a painting.

Irma Hünerfauth, The bilious green plate before blue, c. 1995 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Bricolage Project

Creating a bricolage-style piece of art is so easy – it simply involves gathering objects and laying them out in a certain way. In order to adapt the idea further, try gathering objects from a certain room in your house, or objects that relate to a certain activity, and lay them out in a shape that resembles or represents the room or activity.

For our example, we are going to use objects from a shed.

The first step is to gather all your objects:

We can now use our objects to create a new image. We have decided to create the shape of a shed using the tools and objects we have found inside. It is so easy!

Start by simply laying out the outline of the shed shape:

You can now use the other objects to fill in the shape. If you manage to make out other features, for example a door or a window, that is a bonus, but even laying the items down in a random arrangement is still bricolage.

There are endless arrangements and themes you can try with this project, here are a few others we have created:

Kitchen utensils in the shape of a cake:

Make-up and beauty objects used to create a face:

Bricolage.