Tutorial of Collage with magazine pictures.

You too can make your own fantasy collage critters! 

Since I have been having so much fun making my lovable little collaged people, I thought I'd share with you how I go about it;

Needed: 

*  An unused A4 size hardcover book, preferably bound, not glued. These are stronger. Go for an old cookbook, with pages that are good quality paper, but not too glossy.

               

*   Interesting magazine pictures. I look for national geographics ( animals), fashion magazine (spare arms, legs, big eyes, jewellery, shoes and dresses), home and gardening and parenting magazines. I keep the pictures in different categories.

I don't really use the gossip magazines, cheap quality paper and photos.

               

*  Glue. I use tacky craft glue, because it is not so wet, which can cause your paper to wrinkle. You can also use modge podge or yes glue.

               

*  Gesso, white. This hides what was originally on the page, and gives a chalky surface for the paint and glue to hold on to.

               

*  Acrylic paint and brush. I like to use 2 colours per page.

               

*  A soft graphite pencil that you can smudge with your finger.

               

*  Black waterproof pens, like a sharpie, or thinner.

               

*  White gel pen.

Recycle an old bound book.

{1}   So I find my book in the opshop for 50cents. I check to see if it is still sturdy and doesn't have hundreds of pages, which is a daunting amount to have to fill up.
I then rip some of the pages out of each "signature". A signature is the handful or so double pages sewn together.
I leave a number divisable by 2. Now I glue 2 pages together, this will make a sturdy background, but the book won't get too bulky.

{2}  I paint a good layer of gesso over the pages and let dry.

Paint and glue, like you are in kindy!

{3}  Paint the page with acrylic paint in 2 colours that you like/ don't like, (but not too dark) with wild brushstrokes. (This should only take a minute.)
No-one will come to tell you off !
 It's cool when 1 colour is still wet and mixes in with the 2nd colour. Bonus!
You now have a non-blank page looking back at you...


{4} Now for the fun bit while the paint dries, or longer. You get to make a critter with your pictures. Cut off heads and try new ones, give them weird clothes and hairstyles or hats and don't forget to use parts of something for totally unrelated purposes.
Use wrong scaled items, short legs and long necks, flowers instead of clothes, or a picture of fire for hair. I used 3 different dress parts to make a new outfit, 2 different hairstyles in 1, and seaweed because it looked outrageous : have a puzzle time. Give them new eyes last, this totally changes them.
Glue together.

{5}  Now add a border. I do rectangles of colours or textures, sometimes themed, sometimes not.
They don't have to fit close together, and your critter can even step outside of the border.

 {6}  Time to scratch around your critter with the soft graphite pencil for shading. Also the inside edge of the border. Then smudge with your finger. This gives your critter some depth and makes it pop from the page.
Sometimes I want something to lighten up instead, so I use a white water soluble pencil. I don't use soluble crayons for this, because the sharpie pen doesn't like going over the top of it.

 {7}  Get out the black sharpie pen, or other favourite permanent ink pen, and draw all around the critter, emphasizing features you want to stand out. Also draw around the edges of the border. Put a pattern in the bits where there is no border picture. Be careful around their eyes: polar bears' eyes got a bit dark, but I can fix that with white pen later. Seahorse girl got some extra curls too.
I did not put black around the pink ladies' lamps on her flower wand, because I wanted them to lighten up.

Adding white gel-pen to the black lines.

{8}   With the white gel-pen draw an inside line on top or next to the black line. Take care of smudging, cause it doesn't dry immediately.

Highlight areas where the light in the photo bounces off. Whiten their eyes. Highlight creases in clothes. My furry friends get tiny lines on their black outlines to make them even furrier. Make jewellery sparkle. Turn lights on.

Little dots are easy to draw and look great!

 

 And there you go, new collage critters in 8 easy steps. Don't forget to click on the pictures above to enlarge them.
Seahorse-girl and Polar-bear are friends and stick together. And Lady Spring always follows Winter-wolf.
Don't forget this is just for fun! Try to have some every day...