InkTuition: The Tricks and Treats of Collage

- Gerri Herbst

The month of September here at Unruly Paper Arts has been titled "Off to Collage" so I will be taking you on a spooky trip off to my studio. There I will share with you my tricks and treats of collage as today's columnist using a Halloween theme.

Now there are all sorts of way to collage based on it's definition of "An artistic composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface, often with unifying lines and color. An assemblage of diverse elements." I'm going to stick with paper and general scrapbooking supplies, so here are my tricks. Hope you will enjoy this scary fun:

1. Layers of Ghostly Voices

Building up your background with numerous layers is key, with the minimum being two. You can  paint, stamp, stencil, ink, wax, spray, doodle on your paper, canvas or fabric to add an interesting base. On my samples below, I have used printed Retro Cafe Art Antique Medicine and Poison Labels Collage paper edges with paint, stamped spiders and red dots, and hand painted black and gold ground with green glue stamped glittered swirls.

2. Inky Black Night Sky

Any main character images you fussy cut out from collage sheets should be edged with a black marker. It will hide any of the white paper that may show around your cutout. It seems to make the image colors stronger then grounds and finishes the images off. You will the difference when you see my finished collages at the end of this article. I will be frightening you with images from Retro Cafe Art including Haunted Mask Period Couple, Happy Hallo Scary baby and my favorite Halloween guy, Edgar Allen Poe.

3. Afraid of Heights

Add height to your piece with 3d elements or even just using cardboard under your images. No need to buy pop ups when cardboard is an affordable alternative. You can also layer the same item on it's self to get height too. The chipboard pieces are from Retro Cafe Art including the tiny mask, Haunted House, spider wand, bat wings and Trinket pocket watch. The spiders are die cut and the broom and witches pot are stickers.

4. Boo!

The sentiment carries an emotional message with it, it can be as simple as Happy Halloween or as complex as a hand cut text sentence. You can use stamps, rubons, your own handwriting or hand cut text from books. On of my favorite sources is a science fiction book that I use all the time. It has stories of the sea, space and love lost and found.

5. Soft Red Velvet and Rough Wooden Coffins

I find that Texture is important too. You can  add it  with your paints, bits of fabric or tulle, Stickles,colored  glitter, ribbons, threads, rhinestones and found objects.

6. Final Epitaph

Some final tricks to consider are to move your elements around when you are creating. Try portrait, then landscape and if you get stuck, look away from your project. Sometimes just looking at your project with a fresh eye makes all the difference. Also I strive for 5 layers on my creations...sometimes there is more.It adds the depth and visual variety that I strive for in a piece.

So those were my tricks and here are my boo-tiful treats for you. ... a Halloween inspired card, a tag and an ATC. Hope you have enjoyed my scary tale of the tricks and treats of collage here at UnRuly Paper Arts.

take care,

Gerri

"The Spooks come out tonight"

"EEK!....BOO!"

"You are scaring me!"