SOME BASIC COLLAGE APPROACHES

Cool Lemon, Paper Collage, 10x14"   Includes Computer Copies of Marbelized Surfaces, Acrylic paints, Spatter Paint, Rice Paper with Embedded Fibers, Iridescent Gift Papers, Magazine Text, Magazine Illustration with Ice Cubes, and More.

Materials, Supplies and Equipment:

            Acrylic Gesso

            White Glue

            Acrylic Medium and or Matte Varnish

            Stiff board panel for background (Canvas Panel, or Masonite primed   
                          with  Gesso)  Canvas panels are fine, and often are pre-primed.

            Soft Acrylic bristle brush- ½ inch to wider. Paint pads are also useful.

                          Keep brushes in water or work dish detergent into the bristles

                                  so they will not harden from acrylic residue.

            Jar with water. A jar with large lid- the lid can be used as a palette for 
                                           mixing acrylic pigments, and helps keep paint moist.

            A water bottle with a fine spray mist to keep paper wet while working. 

            A ruler

            Collected Papers

            Scissors, regular, or with decorative edges

            Exacto knife

            Roller or Brayer to press the paper tightly to the surface or background.

            Acrylic paints and pigments

Approaches. When you start to work, think of these approaches:

            Cut out or tear out large shapes and move them around on the background.

            Select images of pleasing colors and value ranges to lay next to each other.

            Use varied sizes of shapes when placing on the foundation or background.

            Cut a recognizable image into geometric shapes, and alter the positioning.

            Glue over a colored ground, a white or a black ground. Leave spaces between.

            Cut away a part of a face before gluing to the background.

            Change proportions of a face or a figure by taking slices out of the image.

            Alter the silhouette of a figure, a building, an animal.

            Cut or tear a large image into horizontal ribbons or strips.

            Cut or tear a large image into vertical ribbons or strips.

            Distort perspective by using photos of different points of view together.

            Cut out a Silhouette from a larger image.

            Rorschach or reversed design cut out of an image before gluing down.

            Lay transparent colored tissue layers over each other and over parts of image.

            Wrinkled plain papers and thin or tissue papers can add texture.

The Above image and Writing are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary