How to Draw Zurich Art

What You'll Need

• •Old newspapers, packaging, tickets, photocopies, receipts, and uncoated paper for found text and collage fragments
• •Heavy drawing paper or mixed-media board, plus a glue stick or matte gel medium
• •Black marker, charcoal, graphite, ruler, craft knife, and scissors for marks and controlled geometry
• •Opaque primary-color paint such as red, yellow, and blue, with white and black for structure and value
• •A scanner or phone camera for digitizing physical fragments
• •Digital painting or layout software with layers, masks, selection tools, texture brushes, and transform controls

Step by Step

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   1. Define a visual problem

   Start with a short tension-based idea rather than a literal subject, such as a formal diagram interrupted by a domestic object or a calm grid invaded by oversized text. Choose two or three unrelated visual categories to combine: architecture, machinery, food, anatomy, signage, or office material. Write one sentence describing the contradiction you want the viewer to notice. This gives the later fragments a purpose and prevents the composition from becoming a pile of attractive scraps.

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   2. Build a fragment library

   Collect papers with visibly different surfaces: thin newsprint, glossy packaging, rough kraft paper, faded photocopies, and clean white stock. Tear some pieces by hand so the edges show fibers, then cut others with a ruler or knife for a deliberate contrast. Photograph or scan useful fragments before gluing them, especially unusual letterforms, numbers, arrows, stamps, and partial images. Keep fragments in groups by color, texture, and scale so you can make quick compositional decisions.

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   3. Establish a concrete framework

   Lightly mark a few rectangles, bars, circles, diagonals, or a modular grid on the support. Use these shapes to create a stable underlying structure, not to decorate the surface. Leave unequal gaps and introduce one or two interrupted alignments so the geometry feels designed but not sterile. Reserve a clear area for the main focal collision, where the most important image, text, or shape will meet its opposing element.

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   4. Place the primary color planes

   Add two or three flat planes in red, yellow, and blue, using opaque paint or clean digital fills. Keep the planes mostly unmodulated: avoid gradients and excessive shading so color functions as architecture. Vary their size and position rather than distributing them evenly, and let one plane run off the edge of the format. Use black, white, or unpainted paper as active counterweights between the saturated areas.

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   5. Add found typography as visual material

   Select fragments containing partial words, letters, numerals, labels, or technical marks rather than relying on one complete headline. Crop or tear text so meaning is interrupted, then rotate, enlarge, or stack pieces to create rhythm. Keep enough recognizable characters for the viewer to sense language, but do not let the typography explain the entire image. Align some text to the geometric framework and deliberately break another alignment near the focal area.

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   6. Create the absurd juxtaposition

   Choose two images or objects that would not normally share a scene, then change their scale or context to increase the contradiction. For example, place a tiny architectural fragment inside an oversized hand-drawn apparatus, or make a familiar household object behave like a diagram symbol. Overlap the elements so their edges interact instead of placing them side by side like illustrations. Keep one relationship visually clear: size, direction, color, or shape should connect the unrelated parts.

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   7. Layer material contrast

   Glue or place the roughest, most fibrous pieces against the cleanest geometric surfaces. Add dry-brush paint, pencil construction lines, photocopy grain, or a thin translucent paper layer without smoothing everything together. Let some edges curl, misregister, or remain visibly pasted, while keeping the focal shapes firmly attached and readable. Contrast is strongest when each material retains its identity rather than being covered by a uniform texture.

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   8. Control the visual conflict

   Step back and identify the first place your eye lands, the second place it travels, and the quietest area. If every fragment is equally loud, remove or simplify material around the focal collision. Increase tension by enlarging one shape, cropping a form at the edge, or placing a dark mark against a bright plane; reduce tension by adding white space or repeating a shape. Make at least three revision passes, changing position and scale before adding more detail.

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   9. Finish with selective disruption

   Inspect the piece for accidental gaps, weak corners, and areas where layers merge into an indistinct mass. Add only a few final marks: a registration line, a black bar, a torn edge, a small color echo, or a partially hidden word. Repeat one visual element in a distant area to hold the composition together, but avoid balancing every feature symmetrically. Photograph or scan the finished work straight on, then check a small thumbnail to confirm that the main geometry and color conflict still read clearly.

Going Digital

Work non-destructively with separate layers for paper scans, typography, geometry, paint planes, and texture. Use layer masks to create torn edges, hard selections or vector shapes for concrete geometry, and blend modes such as Multiply for translucent paper and screen-like effects for pale scans. Add texture through scanned paper, grain brushes, and slight opacity variation rather than applying one global filter. To imitate physical collage, offset a duplicate layer by a few pixels, erase portions by hand, and preserve small registration errors; then sharpen only the focal text and shapes so the image retains a hierarchy.

Common Mistakes

FAQ