Collage for Beginners – What You Need To Get Started

Adhesives

If you are concerned about the longevity of your collage, bear in mind that any papers or materials such as paints or adhesives may not be archival unless they are artist grade. Newspapers and magazines will yellow unless kept away from natural light. Craft glue may become brittle, and may also yellow. If you want to avoid these issues and your work is going to be framed and hung in natural light, it is worth sticking to artist papers and paints, and gluing with an archival adhesive such as acrylic gel, or a pH neutral or acid free PVA glue. Mod Podge is a popular decoupage glue that can be used for collage, as an adhesive and as a sealant coating. Pritt Stick and Tombow Glue stick are great for sticking medium and lightweight papers, minimising any wrinkles in the paper or seeping of excess glue from under the edges. Pure wheat starch is a glue that requires heating but offers a good, flexible, museum grade adhesive.

 

 

Support

The surface on which you glue your collage, also known as your support, needs to be sturdy and robust enough to take the amount of glue and paper you intend to adhere to it. If it is too thin or flexible it may curl or warp once the glue is dry. For very heavy collages, you might need to use support as sturdy as a wooden panel. Any of the cradled boards available at Jackson’s could be ideal as they are relatively lightweight and very sturdy. For lighter collages you could try using foam board, Corri-cor or mountboard. If you apply colour to your support it could become part of the composition, and not just the backing to it. If you use packaging materials as a support, a layer of acrylic primer (which is available black, white or clear) can be used to protect any archival materials from any acid content that may be present in the card, which could potentially cause your collage to yellow over the course of several years.

 

Boards

If you use a fluid glue and apply paints to your collage, you will need to let it dry between boards in order for it to dry flat. Sheets of glassine on either side of your work, followed by boards or books big enough to cover the whole of your work, will do the trick. The glassine will easily peel away from most surfaces and ensure your collage doesn’t stick to your boards! Once your collage is dry and flat you might like to work further into it, or finish it with a sealant or varnish.

 

 

Working into your Collage

Sometimes, adding drawn, printed or painted elements to your collage can help to accentuate shapes or add detail. Some media, such as watercolour or ink, are best applied to a surface with a degree of absorbency, so it’s best to use these colours prior to sealing or varnishing your work. If you know you’re going to work with such media, it’s more important to try to avoid using too much glue when making your collage, as the glue may not take the watercolour or ink, if it has bled out from under the pieces of paper you have stuck. Other media, such as acrylics, oils, or pigment pens, can be applied on top of sealed surfaces.

 

Sealant/Varnish

An artist spray varnish offers a thin layer of protection that will not wrinkle your collage on application. Mod Podge, as previously mentioned offers a durable coating, and is waterbased and non-toxic – so it’s easy to apply if working at home or in a space with limited ventilation. Alternatively a few layers of acrylic varnish, which is available matt, gloss and satin, will provide a durable and archival layer of varnish. Some varnishes also offer protection against the damaging effects of UV light.

 

---

 

Glossary of Collage Terms

 

 

Assemblage

 

An assemblage is a three dimensional collage, with elements that project out from the support of the work. The materials used in an assemblage usually include found or ready-made elements, although not always. Assemblage as an art form came to prominence in the early twentieth century, and was used by Cubist artists such as Pablo Picasso, Dadaist artists such as Kurt Schwitters, and Pop Artists including Robert Rauschenberg and Tom Wesselmann.

 

Décollage

 

Décollage is essentially the opposite to collage, where a material or object is deconstructed, perhaps by peeling away its layers, in order to expose its otherwise unseen characteristics. It is closely associated with Jacques Villeglé and the nouveau realism movement of the 1960s, who made art from layers of pasted posters ripped from walls in the street, which were then fixed on to stretched canvases.

 

Decoupage

 

Decoupage is a term used to decribe collaging papers to objects to add decoration, but it is also used to describe collages that have been made on a flat surface, that have then been sealed or varnished with layers of lacquer, resin or varnish.

 

Mixed Media

 

 

A term to describe any work of art that uses a combination of different materials, such as paint and paper on collage, or printmaking and drawing on paper.

 

Montage

 

A collage made up of images that have something in common with one another, which are used usually to communicate a specific message. A photomontage is a montage that has photographic elements incorporated into the work. Photomontages often have a political aspect to them, some of the very first were made by the Dadaists as protest art against the First World War in 1915.

 

Papier Collé of Paper Cut Outs

 

This article is primarily concerned with Paper Collé, as it addresses the art of making an image constructed of different papers, rather than including other materials in the work. Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso were early practitioners of paper cut out art, making still life arrangements in 1912, while immersed in their invention of and exploration within Cubism. Later on in the twentieth century, Henri Matisse threw himself into the art of paper cut outs during his last years, making a huge volume of large scale, expressive and colourful work.

 

Interviews with artists who work with Collage