Glitch Your Art: Turning Paintings into Bold Collage Patterns with Decim8
Have you ever wanted to create bold, unusual patterns for your collages? You’ve come to the right place! I’ve been experimenting with a process that takes traditional fluid acrylic paintings and anything else you can possibly think of and transforms them into incredible abstract patterns—perfect for taking collage into new and exciting directions.
This technique has also helped me bridge the gap between traditional and digital art. The results can be used digitally, shared online, or printed and incorporated into physical collage work. These would also make amazing abstract painting references, but I’m focusing on collage in this post.
Starting Point: Traditional Art Meets Digital Capture
Begin with any kind of artwork—a painting, pattern, doodle, or even a messy page full of marks. Snap a photo of it with your phone, making sure the artwork fills the whole frame. If needed, crop out anything you don’t want included. Abstract photography also works well for this technique!
It doesn’t have to be fancy. That’s the beauty of it. Even a page of experimental brushstrokes or scribbles can become something extraordinary once you process it further. Personally, I love how fluid acrylic pouring and mixed media textures react in this workflow, but any technique can work. If you’re curious about the broader world of mixed media, the Tate has a great overview of how artists combine different methods to push their practice further.
Enter Decim8: The Digital Distortion App
Once you’ve captured your image, it’s time to put it into Decim8 (pronounced “decimate”), a mobile app available for iOS and Android. Decim8 is a glitch-art generator that manipulates your image using a library of distortion effects. Think pixel shattering, mirrored kaleidoscopes, wave distortions, and unexpected geometric overlays.
If you’re new to the idea of glitch art, this introductory article offers a fascinating look at its history and why it resonates in contemporary visual culture.
Here’s a quick overview of how to use Decim8:
Upload your image into Decim8.
Choose effects from the library (with names like “Brainfeeder” or “Polybomb”). Each effect transforms your work in a different way. You can save your favourite combos as presets.
Stack effects together to create even more complex patterns.
Randomize if you want to explore quickly—the app has a shuffle-style button that generates instant variations. There are two options-one for randomizing the effects themselves, and one for randomizing the parameters of the effects combos.
Save your favourites to your camera roll for later use.
What makes Decim8 fun is its unpredictability. You never quite know what you’ll get, but the results are often striking.
The Creative Debate: Is It “Real Art”?
It might seem simplistic—just pushing a randomize button and letting the app spit out results. Some people dismiss it as not “real” art because the patterns feel random or automatic. But I see it differently.
The art doesn’t come from Decim8 alone—it comes from:
What you feed into it. A textured painting, a sketch, or a photo you took yourself.
How you curate the results. Choosing which outputs speak to you, which ones spark ideas.
What you build onto it. Incorporating the patterns into digital collages, printing them for hand-cut work, or layering them with other techniques.
This tension between tool and artist is part of a bigger conversation. As The Guardian points out, digital art has often been questioned for its legitimacy, but in reality, it’s just another medium for creative expression—like photography once was when it first emerged.
Why Try This in Collage?
Collage thrives on unexpected juxtapositions. Decim8 gives you an endless library of abstract textures and patterns that you could never create by hand in quite the same way.
Digitally, you can overlay these patterns into your compositions for quick experimentation.
Physically, you can print your favourites onto paper, cut or tear them up, and add them to traditional collages.
The creative potential is huge—and because every output is unique and based on what you created yourself, no two artists will ever get the same results.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been looking for a fresh way to combine your traditional and digital art practices, Decim8 is a playful and powerful tool worth exploring. The process may feel experimental, but that’s where the magic happens.
Take your own paintings, doodles, or mark-making, run them through Decim8, and see how the unexpected glitches and distortions can breathe new life into your collage work.
More From Art and Design By Teresa Cowleyf
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