Search results

Start typing

ACTIVITY / CHALLENGE

Creative collage

Collage designed by Alexandra, Princess of Wales

Get inspired by the amazing artworks of Queen Alexandra in our creative collage challenge!

A collage designed by Alexandra, Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra©

Queen Alexandra combined two types of art ­– photography and watercolour painting – to come up with these creative collages. In the collage below she glued photographs of children onto watercolour flowers to make it look like tiny fairies are hiding in the plants!  You can try her technique yourself by designing photo-collages with your own photographs and drawings.

Collage designed by Alexandra, Princess of Wales©
A collage design of a clock face©
You will need:

PVA glue; scissors; strong paper or card (for the base); photographs (or magazine cuttings); watercolour paints, colouring pencils or crayons.

Creating your collage:

First of all, decide how you want to arrange your photographs and what sort of scene you want to place your photographs in. Lots of Queen Alexandra’s collages put photographs of people in unusual places, such as in this one, where there are heads instead of numbers on the face of a clock; or this one below, where several ladies are shown on a fan (Queen Alexandra is the one on the far left, reading a book!).

Fan design collage by Alexandra, Princess of Wales©

Why not pick an object in your house to draw, and then see where you might be able to add photographs to your drawing?

Once you have drawn your object or scene, add your photographs, cutting them to the shape or size that you want. For example, you might want to cut all of your photographs out into circles, and create a pattern such as the collage below from Queen Alexandra’s album.

Once you have stuck down your images, you are ready to add colour to your image using watercolours, pencils or crayons.

A collage design of foliage by Alexandra, Princess of Wales©

Find out more about the works featured here:


The income from your ticket contributes directly to The Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The aims of The Royal Collection Trust are the care and conservation of the Royal Collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational activities.