Collage on Canvas

�Self-portrait�
The plan for this collage was done on computer using a picture of myself. I
divided the picture in 4 quarters and used one of them as my main plan. It does not show the face very well / cheek and the nose, but you can spot theeye ;-))) I found on the internet loads of free crazy fonts, or other alphabets and I used old cuneiforms, ogham, and fantasy alphabets from
The Lord of the Rings (even if I am not an aficionado of these books). This was
a lot of fun since I used to create my own alphabets when I was in the third grade to send notes to boys and laugh at them because they didn�t know
what I'd written. The fonts were printed on hand made paper. I added some decorative rusted ivy leaves and the embossed stamp on the mica is a
kind of replica of the big collage plan. On the nose area I glued down paraffin film dyed with stamping inks.

�Va-va voom�
This was a collage that made itself in true Dada style. I had a totally different subject in mind involving dragonflies. It ended up as a
memory assemblage of the 50s with ads from 1950s English papers, photographs and of
course the unmistakable Marilyn Monroe. She is a transfer on polymer clay as is the stamped bustier on the dress. The ads are acrylic medium transfer.
The background is painted with acrylics on crumpled gold tissue paper.

Monica Pisica
�Caught in the net�
This is a collage /assemblage inspired by a drawing I did in my
notebook last year for a glass bead I wanted to do (I am creating lampworking beads as well). The rest was only play with colour and texture. The canvas board
was covered with wrinkled tissue paper, and painted with acrylic colours and pixy dust. The mermaid is made from air-drying clay and it was covered with acrylic paints (tail) and gold beads and metallic paint for the torso that was antiqued with rust and green patina. The little mermaid necklace is made from seed beads. I knotted the net from different yarns and glued down fish-shaped clay beads and my own cracked glass beads. The other beads from the net are made of wood.

Elizabeth DeBerry
These were my first collages on canvas, and the first that were anything more than just gluing paper. So the first one is just paper because I loved the cloud paper so much I wanted to use it as a main theme. It seemed incomplete, especially after I decided to leave out the picture of Tahiti in the middle--until the poetic line came to me.
The second one began with yellow paint and the library checkout card and simply evolved from there. Once I chose young love I wanted it to be all bright and hopeful with no dark tones. On this one I learned stamp last--I didn't think the ink would smear when covered with gel medium since it had had so long to dry. I was wrong, but I don't think the smearing hurt that much.
The third one was many different things before it became what it is. I played with the paint colors--rose and white on top of yellow--and didn't like how it came out. So I covered part of it up with pictures that I covered in Pearl medium mixed with reg. medium to make it more translucent. Then I read Aisling's site and added tissue paper. Then I added more pictures and the other elements, and the glitter (another Aisling hint). Originally it only had one leaf skeleton but that looked unfinished, so I added the other two, which brought the picture into balance and focused the eye on the woman. It was all intuition and trying out others ideas,

Helen Rudd
All of my papers, stamps, and assemblage materials come from my own line of stamps and products Rubber Stamp Diva
Waking the Dead
began as a cruciform painting and sort of evolved from there. I began with a deep red paint. As i layered on the collage materials i was careful to leave a pattern in the form of a cross in the center of the canvas.

Double Visions
I layered religious sheet music onto the collage and followed with an image that I had tweaked on my computer after stamping. I used photoshop to make it appear that there were 2 women and 2 children one superimposed on the other. I followed that with various assemblage pieces and covered with a layer of paint which was removed quickly with a paper towel and water.

Alluring
I followed much the same process as above but did not tweak the image on my computer.

Sally White
My canvases are each different; however, there were all very uncomplicated. First I used ivory gesso on each canvas. When that dried, I colorized/aged each with a combination of pigment inks and acrylic paints. Then I adhered the collage elements with matte gel medium and E600. See? Easy and painless! Yet simply groovy to look at (well, at least I think so

Gillian Allen
The majority of the time spent working on these collages was mainly taken up by researching and collecting images to use. For 'Fortune' and 'Art Applied' these were manipulated in Photoshop, layering over each other and creating new images, something that I find very exciting. Unexpected colours and designs emerge, and unending possibilities occur, although for this project this technique is probably unsuited. Nevertheless these images were cut up and applied with acrylic matt gel medium. Acrylic colours sometimes with the addition of metallic Luna Lights paints, were painted around the images to blend them. On 'Play Times' a dress pattern, Oxford Impression stamps, and anaglypta wallpaper were also added

The theme was to create a collage on a canvas background, using canvas, paper, board or stretched. Many of the artist's were new to this medium a few had previous workshop experience. Everyone found it enjoyable and pushed themselves into new creative areas.
Mouse over pictures gives the name of the artist with some info on the right

Lenna Andrews Foster
I used small canvas boards, 6" x 8". I did not prepare or prime my canvas in any way.
I gathered a page from a 1923 McCall's magazine that showed patterns for children, words from advertisements for shampoo and other things, as well as a paper napkin with an olive and leaf design. I separated the napkin layers so there was only the top thin layer to use. I ripped all the papers to a good size, and after trying the placement out, I glued the papers down with gel medium and used the same to brush over the entire collage. When I did, my foam brush still had a bit of Gold Lumiere on it, and this little bit of leftover paint mixed with the medium & it made a nice effect. So much so, that I went and got some transparent yellow Golden's paint, and added that to some gel medium & brushed it over everything. I let that dry, came back, added a few more papers, and did some stamping of leaves around the edges with StazOn Permanent Ink in green by Tsukineko. I stamped the words BREATHE and SEE with a black permanent ink. I finished it off with a strip of Earth toned RicRac from ArtChix Studios. I really enjoyed creating these pieces. I have photos of all of the collages I made on my PictureTrail site, here:
www.picturetrail.com

Marie Skotzki
Here is one of the techniques Claudine Hellmuth taught us which I used for the background.
It's realy easy and fun - cover your canvas with Golden's Regular Gel matte and glue your paper down, let it dry a little ( you can use a heatgun to speed it up) than take strips of masking tape and stick it to the paper - when you pull up the tape some of the paper will pull up too it's up to you on how much you want to come off.
After you're done peeling the paper give it a wash with Golden's Acrylics (applied one layer, wiped it off with a wet paper towel next layer and so on)
Note that the paint will adhere darker to the exposed paper areas and will create a very interesting aged look. After that I gave it a coat of Golden's Regular Gel matte to seal. While dry I overstamped French Handwriting, glued on the image, lace and stamp. The lace was colored with metallic rub ons - another layer of Golden Gel.
The huge spot is melted colorless beeswax which was brushed on than stamped into it and colored with rub ons - I didn't like it so I melted it again (heatgun) and let the wax drip a little. Colors I used where: Titan Buff, Iridescent Pearl also Golden's. Iridescent Pearl gives a nice shimmering effect -- dependent on the light

Marie Skotzki
collage on an envelope, although not a collage on canvas I included this for its free uninhibited use of collage elements that would look equally good applied to canvas

If you have collages you would like to show on this site, please submit to gillian@art-e-zine.co.uk

Links:there are of course many artists doing collage but I have put a few here that use a canvas background to help with your studies. Any more you find, add them here
Ann Baldwin's Art Studi o--collages
Claudine Hellmut h portfolio
Studio Red mixed media collages
Nina Bagley Limited Edition Canvases

Carla Naron
a few words about the collages. I bought a roll of floor cloth canvas (typically used to paint rugs) from Michael's. It is double primed and ready for any medium-no prep work and that's a big plus with me. I cut squares in sizes 5x7 and 4x6. I began with a wash of diluted acrylic paint, then I stamped images onto the background with black memories ink. After my background was complete I went through my boxes of images and tried to select things that fit into my color scheme. I glued everything down with plain old Modge-Podge glue and then framed them. Very simple.