move fast and make things

I get asked a lot where I find material for web weaves and collages. I have an usual response but am extremely nerfed by having to fit it in a discord message; here's a version where I don't. 

Obviously this isn't a comprehensive list, just a few places with a wide variety of material if you're not sure where to start. It's also focused on professionally published sources; most multifandom exchanges that accept collage as a medium want you to stick to sources that are copyright-free, professionally published and free online, or covered by a permission statement. And, of course, professional publication makes the source of an image much easier to properly find and credit. 

Image sources:

• Artvee, an archive of public domain art; its keyword search isn't the best but its galleries are lovely. I especially get a lot of mileage out of Artvee Books.
• Museums
  
  • The Guggenheim
  • The Smithsonian American Art Museum
  • The Cooper Hewitt Foundation
  • The Met
  • The Kunstgewerbe
  • The Getty Museum
  • The National Gallery of Art
  • The Victoria & Albert
  • Also other museums! But those are the ones I've found have a particularly good ratio of stuff I want to download : amount they make it difficult to go through them.
• Unsplash, for free stock photography
• Wikimedia Foundation
• The Internet Archive
• The Public Domain Review
• Studio Art Quilt Associates
• Any webcomic you happen to like
• Newspaper comics, though these are harder to find online archives of for free
• Gallery websites - if you know of a traditional artist you like, there's a good chance they've got a gallery exhibition you can go through if you look!
• Magazine covers and editorial illustration - if you know of an illustrator you like they might have a website that lists what publications various illustrations were for; alternately, you could approach it from the other direction and go through a magazine and check the illustrators they credit
• Some magazines also have special art sections, separately from their editorial illustration
• Official art and concept art galleries (not necessarily for the canon you're working with!)
• Auction websites - 1stdibs, Sothebys, Christie's, Heritage Auctions, Live Auctioneers, among others
• Online storefront product photography - there are some very evocative jewelry stores out there
• Movie and TV show screencaps
• Music video and short film stills
• Ads - I tend to find print ads more helpful than stills from video ads, but there is some interesting corporate design out there
• Posters - for movies, for bands, for books
• Album covers
• Tarot decks

Text sources:

• Project Gutenberg
• Wikipedia - I'd try not to rely on this one, it's an easy first response but often very generic-sounding? But when it hits it really hits.
• Wikisource
• Poetry Foundation, poets.org, and other poetry archive sites
• The Paris Review, Tor, Guernica, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and other non-paywalled magazines
• Comics again, both web and newspaper
• The Petrucci Music Library, a library of public domain sheet music
• Genius lyrics
• Movie and TV show scripts
• Articles and informational websites
• Substack posts
• Podcast transcripts
• Let's plays of visual novels and other text-heavy games
• Free-to-play tabletop RPGs - character creation sections tend to be especially evocative

I find that personal style in these mediums is so tied to "what do I love enough to want to draw lots of connections to and spend lots of time with" that I'm always hesitant to recommend too many specific artists or sources, so this resource post focuses on places where you can find a really broad range of material - but if there's something you love, it can absolutely be worth going through. Know your taste, trust your taste, and have fun!