One of my favorite collage artists is Claudine Hellmouth, she has two wonderful books out called Collage Discovery Workshop Vol.I and Vol.II. I’ve gotten lots of ideas and inspiration from her and her books. Here’s a link to her website: http://www.collageartist.com/
In the first book she teaches a background technique using paint and Vaseline, it sounded crazy to me, so of course I had to give it a try. Here are my results:
It’s actually an easy (if not messy) technique. Using a foam bush I painted my canvas board completely with black acrylic paint, then let it dry. Honestly I got impatient and used my heat gun to speed up the drying time:) Then I used my fingers (this is the messy part) and smeared Vaseline in certain sections and then painted over the entire board again with grey acrylic paint and let dry again. Then I used paper towels and water to wash off the canvas board. The Vaseline acts as a resist so you get a cool looking background that looks like very old weathered paint!
I finished this piece by collaging on a photo of a woman I had photocopied and blown up using my home scanner/printer. I used gel medium to attach it, also adding some text from an old book. Then painted on numbers using a plastic stencil and white acrylic paint and finally finished it off with some old buttons.
A word about canvas board, I prefer using canvas art boards instead of regular art canvas that are stretched over a wooden frame. I find them alot easier to collage on, they seem sturdier and stand up to more abuse and since they don’t “bow” in the middle I can put alot of pressure on them with worrying if they will tear. Plus they are less expensive and easier to frame.