Collage remains to fascinate me and especially when combined with painting so this post is dedicated to the Muted Colors Collage. In explanation, I should say that the general conception of collage is primarily pieces that are cut and directly glued down to the surface without much painting involved. I have found that I love to experiment with different effects that can be obtained by experimenting with paint by either first painting in the background with abstract shapes and then adding the cut out collage pieces or reversing the situation. For this project, I knew I wanted to work with painted tissue paper on gallery board. In the above posted video I explain the process I used to paint the tissue paper. I used acrylic paints with only enough water to make the paint spreadable, because using too much water makes the tissue paper come apart and dissolve. I used colored tissue paper and tried to let the background color show through. White tissue paper can be used also. The tissue paper is inexpensive from the dollar store. The following video explains the direction that I took with the two different collages.

With the tan canvas, I painted the background with acrylic paints and then added the painted abstract shapes. Then painted tissue paper was added. With the green canvas, I painted a very simple background and the foreground shapes are all the painted tissue paper collage pieces. I then also painted a few areas to complete the collage.

I learned a lot from this Be Creative – Muted Colors Collage project and like the way the final canvases turned out. The delicate qualities of the painted tissue paper give it an unusual look and feel and the transparency is interesting how it is sometimes very unpredictable.