How to Make a Collage Part 1: Materials

Welcome to a new collection of posts about the technical bits of my collages: where I get materials, how I assemble them, and other tips/tricks I’ve learned along the way. This first post is dedicated to my source materials. Read the second post about assembly here.

If you aren’t familiar with my work, head over to my website so you can see what the heck I’m talking about. On to the nitty gritty now.. I use three types of images to make my collages: original paintings, photographic prints, and found images. 

Original Paintings

I like to include some hand painted pieces in each of my collages because it makes them feel more special and unique. For these paintings I pretty much use whatever paint and paper I have on hand, and then cut up the painting into pieces. The most important thing to be aware of during this process is the thickness of the paper. I use a Fiskars hexagon squeeze punch designed for scrapbooking to cut most of my pieces so the paper I use needs to be thin enough to punch through, otherwise cutting by hand is needed. This punch is recommended for use on papers that weigh less than 65lb, but I’ve used it on papers up to 135 lb (even some watercolor papers work).

Another thing to keep in mind (especially if you are using several different mediums in one collage) is the best way to display and protect the pieces once they are part of the finished product. The guidelines for preserving alcohol ink paintings vs oil paintings for example are very different so the collage needs to be created with that in mind.

Some materials I’ve used are:

-alcohol ink on LIGHTWEIGHT yupo paper- (the heavy kind is too thick for the punch) I drop the inks onto the yupo and spread them around until I like the composition, then once the painting is dry I spray it with two coats of fixative. Grumbacher final fixative is what I use because I have it already. It’s not the best, but it gets the job done. After that I spray the painting with varnish (I rotate between Winsor and Newton high gloss and matte varnishes, again because I have it on hand). This varnish step is really important because alcohol inks are prone to fading and the fixative step is important because varnish alone will reactivate and mess up the inks. Alcohol ink paintings should be framed under glass to prevent fading, so a collage containing alcohol ink pieces should also be under glass. (However I haven’t noticed fading on my unframed collages yet so perhaps a few coats of varnish with UV protection does the trick.)

-acrylic/acrylic ink/fluid acrylics on watercolor or mixed media paper- there are so many brands of acrylic paint and papers out there that I couldn’t possibly claim to be an expert on what's best to use. I think it depends on personal preference and the effect you are looking for mostly. Again, the most important factor in my decision here is the thickness of the paper. I tried Strathmore 400 series acrylic paper and it was too thick, but Canson artist series mixed media paper and Strathmore watercolor paper seem to work well for me. For paint, I use Golden heavy body acrylics and fluid acrylics and Liquitex acrylic inks to make either realistic paintings or abstract paintings depending on how I feel that day. Acrylic paintings have the greatest flexibility in terms of protection because they can be varnished or framed under glass. This means a collage with acrylic pieces can be displayed either way as well. 

-oils on Colourfix paper- Occasionally I will incorporate oil paintings on paper as well. Oils are what I predominately used before collage so it’s a bit hard for me to let them go even though they aren’t the best medium for collage. But hey- there’s no rules in art! I use Winsor and Newton water mixable oils on Art Spectrum Colourfix paper (which is just thin enough to punch through). You can use other papers but they will need a coat or two of gesso to prevent the oils from destroying the paper. I have read that oil paintings shouldn’t be framed under glass (unless they are very very very dried) so a collage with oil painting pieces shouldn’t be framed under glass either. 

Photographs

To incorporate previously finished paintings on canvas or wood panel, I need to work with photos of the pieces. For these I mailing print on Kodak professional endura paper from finerworks.com (also where I get my fine art prints made, I highly recommend them!). This paper is really amazing quality- colors are vibrant and black are nice and rich. Images on this paper are supposed to last 100 years in normal home conditions before fading (200 years in dark storage) which is a major plus for me because I want my collages to last for generations to come. Luckily this paper is also thin enough to fit in my hexagons punch. Any other fine art paper thats on the thinner side could also be used if you don’t like the look of photo paper, although I personally like having a mix of glossy and matte pieces in my collages. Other papers I have tried are archival matte paper (from finerworks.com) which was thin enough to punch and Hahnemuhle photo rag paper which was too thick and had to be cut by hand. Both are excellent papers though, I don’t want to discourage you from using them for fine art prints!

Another main source of materials I use is pixabay.com. They have thousands of high quality free stock photos that you can download and use as reference photos. I’ve been digitally hoarding photos from this site for years and it feels so good to finally use them. I get them printed on the same Kodak professional endura photo paper as well. 

I’ll also note that I use some of my own photos taken on my iPhone and dslr cameras. I try to not to acknowledge the fact that some photos are mine though unless they make up a large portion of the collage because I don’t want to accidentally also take credit for the work of other photographers (my mentality while using photos is that I am admiring what already exists and using the details I love rather than claiming to be responsible for all the images I use).

Found images

Last but certainly not least, I like to incorporate any interesting images I can find into my collages. So far, I have used pieces from vintage postcards, comic books, science magazines, a book about different natural environments, and a biography about Renoir with images of his paintings. Used book stores, antique stores, and even your own home are good places to find collage materials ( I found the books I mentioned above in my garage so you never know where inspiration will strike). 

I always frame collages containing found images under glass to prevent fading, since the quality of the paper and ink isn’t known. 

That’s it! Lots of info here but comment below with any further questions you have about my materials and be sure to check back for my next post about my construction process (including the tape I use, substrates, and planning/arranging the pieces).