P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell

I just answered an online question, and decided to save my own reply about mounting collage. This is a brief how-to adhere, seal, and mount paper collage work.

But first a peek at my most recent collage efforts in the studio. The first piece below is now complete. The next one is ready to assemble, but I dread taking it apart in order to glue it down. Note that all of the parts used here are my own work…

Here is the “how-to” information:

I usually use Lineco Neutral pH PVA Adhesive to attach paper to paper. I generally seal with Krylon clear sprays (there are other brands that are fine, maybe better!). You can use flat, satin, or gloss; gloss is best if you have metallic paint or glossy paper that you want to keep that way.

Heavy matte medium works well for attaching thicker papers to a sturdy watercolor or mixed media paper, but I do NOT use it for thinner papers unless I have already mounted the background paper to a backer board.

I do use heavy matte medium for attaching a background paper to various stiff mounting boards; the medium gets applied to the board rather than to the paper.

Once a finished piece is sprayed with sealant and mounted to a board, I may brush on a thinner matte or gloss medium. I seal it with at least two coats of spray first. This is best when the piece is more dimensional and I want a heavier seal, or for work that looks OK with visible brush strokes. I stick to spray for more delicate work.

BTW the trick that I was taught for mounting to sturdy art boards, masonite, wood panel, etc. is really useful. Apply a heavy gel acrylic medium (not the thinner liquid medium) to the board first, And if the paper you are attaching is NOT super thin “rice” or tissue paper spray the back of it lightly with water, then apply! IF done carefully this gives you a tiny interval of float that allows you to reposition it if necessary! It is very helpful if you are trying to line up larger pieces! There is, of course, a video on YouTube… ?

Digital Creativity for Collage

These colorful flute players were printed just for fun, but are now parts that I may use in a new work someday!

I scanned an 18″ wooden flute player that I made previously for my mother. She was very fond of Southwest imagery and history. For these new works, I printed this scan almost full size to use in the two collages above.

For these two very colorful versions, I created a digital pattern from an interesting photo. I used that to fill my flute player shape in two different colors.

When is finished? These four quite different mixed media pieces may all be finished, if I can just keep my hands OFF them! Sometimes I don’t know when to stop.

At least I have some work happening in the studio, although much of it is continuation and completions. I am using older works as parts, or collage elements, and then spending a lot of time on presentation. It all feels so unimportant, but I think I need to persist in order to get to something more significant. Nothing is coming easily just now.

When you accumulate many bits & pieces, many partially finished art attempts, duplicate images, and early artworks you no longer love, turn to the art of collage!

Of course it is a fuzzy line between mixed media art and the art of collage. When I layer a few embellishments onto a drawing, photo, or painting, that doesn’t feel like collage. Maybe I have made a collage when the focus of the work is actually made up of multiple parts? Or at least when the context is critical to the piece and that is built from many parts?

I am not good at determining firm distinctions in art categories. For one thing, I don’t see the point of doing so! I will leave that to others. Here are some recent efforts, collage, mixed media, or other:

Note that the first two images are two photos of the same piece. The first with the work placed on the studio floor, the second with the work placed in a window. This piece is intentionally translucent, but not necessarily to be backlit through a fly screen as above! The gridded mesh is NOT part of the artwork…

A bit of finish work can turn an older drawing into a new piece, and an older extra part the wrong size can be repurposed in a brand new concept. At left I embellished a drawing for a concept that ended up very differently, and at right is a beginning of a new work which may acquire a few more moons:

I have been thoroughly derailed from my more usual artistic pursuits recently, and have had to find my art in remodeling work. I have been converting a storage room into living space, and it is taking several months to complete. My studio has been chaotic and full of extra “stuff”: furniture, supplies, and more, making every activity more difficult. I cannot find things I need, and cannot put things away properly.

Now I am starting to get some relief; the project is almost complete. However I am still not able to really move in to my newly remodeled space! Maybe next week will be the week!

Here is an attempt to incorporate some artwork into my project. I added some custom artwork during the painting phase, in order to hide the boundary between two different “whites” on the back room wall.

My remodel modified two rooms that had been joined by a double door. Now they are separated, and both now have previously missing closets. Yay storage!

The above bubbles rise from floor level and spill onto the ceiling and the closet door. I painted the first stream of bubbles by hand, but then created different sized stamps from a piece of adhesive backed velvety fabric, then used various techniques with my paints so that each bubble is unique. The effect is satisfactory: not fine art, but not too silly either! So I did find an opportunity for art in remodeling.

This new collage, A Small Prayer, came about from my studio cleanup, during an interval in my remodeling intensive. I am delighted to make any new artwork at this time, no matter how small! A Small Prayer is approximately 7″x7″ (not quite square) and it consists of quite a few different pieces from older art, along with a couple of found objects.

I started with the one remaining remnant of another much older artwork. This was a rather unsuccessful work that slowly decayed to nothing outside, leaving only the small figure below. I evicted the original low relief artwork from my studio, along with several other early pieces! Yard art!

I rescued the small kneeling figure from the grass while tidying up the yard, and made it the focus in my new work. I probably made this much older and now weathered figure from polymer clay, and added layers of paint.

In addition to the figure, A Small Prayer consists of a construction byproduct circle of metal roofing, a lovely scrap of birch bark, and several pieces of my collograph prints. I mounted these to a square of door skin plywood. Then I mounted that to 3/4 plywood, so it is painted, edged, and ready to hang.