I’ve been working on making collage papers the last few weeks, just painting different papers with paint, and trying different designs and color combinations. Yesterday I had a chance to sit down and use some of the papers I’ve been accumulating.
I don’t usually collage with any real plan. My typical process is to intuitively lay down papers, and I usually am happy with how that works. Lately I’ve been using glue sticks, but sometimes I’ll use different acrylic adhesives (mod podge, matte medium, etc). For these collages I used a glue stick.
I grabbed a few papers I wanted to use out of my stash, cut or tore some pieces from them, and then grabbed the sketchbook. I drew a border around the edge of the page, and then just started gluing papers down. I went in afterwards with some paint markers – I recently learned about POSCA pens, I bought some big thick markers, and I’m really enjoying them. They are just acrylic paint markers, but the size is what drew me to them. The black and red horizontal/diagonal marks in my first collage above are using the POSCA pens.
For my second collage, I used the same process – drew a border in the sketchbook, and just started gluing papers down. I had some parchment paper that I had left over from eco-printing some fabric – I had used it as a barrier between fabric bundles. It has some really cool staining on it from that process. So I created the bird from that paper. I added some leaf shapes to the collage with my POSCA pens, and then glued the bird down. I did use some matte medium to glue the parchment paper – the glue stick wasn’t really working for that piece. Then I went in again with a black POSCA pen and gave my bird some feet. I drew in with some smaller black pens for some small leaf details.
I am really happy with how these collages turned out. I keep meaning to use my sketchbook more often, but my schedule tends to get busy, and I keep giving myself too many goals.* I need to remember to make more time for playing. You get some really cool results when you just play around.
*If you are not familiar with my Instagram or Facebook, I have a fabric collage goal that I am working on and posting over there. @jenpowelldesigns on Instagram, or at facebook.com/jenpowelldesigns
Jen Powell designs 