WOYWW And A Collage Backgrounds Tutorial

It's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (pop on over to Julia's blog to find out more) and on my desk I have:

Some bits and pieces to recycle into art!

I have a tutorial to share but for the WOYWWs feel free to hop on to the next person!

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A number of folk have asked about how I make the backgrounds that I've been using in recent makes so here you go folks!

The photo above gives you a clue at some of the things I use for my backgrounds: old books, music scores, maps, magazines, newspaper, telephone books, old dress patterns. You can use this technique on all sorts of bits and pieces.

What you need is your collage material and a base card to work on; I use old scraps, and the thickness will depend on what you subsequently want to use the piece for. As a starting point try some card of over 240gsm to play with.

I have a dedicated glue brush for all my glue work, a little nylon bristle paint brush. You want to dilute some PVA to the consistency of single cream, I usually store mine in an old bottle. You might also want to have a mini-bottle of water to hand and to work on a plastic sheet.

I've torn my collage materials into strips; you can make the pieces as small or as big as you want but bear in mind what the final piece will be used for and, if it's going to be something small, you might want to make the collage pieces small otherwise you won't get that lovely texture of the torn edges.

To start, spread a layer of the diluted PVA over the base card and don't let it dry, you can always spritz with water to keep it moist.

Start adding your strips of collage materials to the wet base card and brush more diluted PVA over the top. If you are working with collage material that is glossy or thick, it is a good idea to brush the underside with diluted PVA before putting onto the base card. You want the collage pieces to be pretty saturated with the PVA.

Everything is going to get pretty wet and pretty sticky! But that's the fun bit!

I add my pieces as randomly as I can and not really worrying which way around the collage piece is.

So keep adding bits to the base card, with a layer of diluted PVA, then a new strip of collage material and a layer of diluted PVA over the top and, if you need, spritz with water if you think areas are drying or add more diluted PVA.

If you are working on a plastic sheet then once the card is dry it should just peel off of the plastic. But I often peel mine off whilst wet and dry it on the top of some flat-topped paint bottles. It will take a while to dry, often taking overnight, but you can help it along with a heat tool if you are that impatient!

Need some more ideas? How about...

Use your collage with distress inks

Use your collage with paints

Use with watercolour pens like the ZIG Art and Graphic Twin from Kuretake

Using textured card, like corrugated card, as the base card

Pass the collaged card through a die-cutting machine in an embossing folder

Use fabric as the collage pieces

Yep, the possibilities are endless and I can't wait to see what you do!

Have fun

Kim

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