It's fall.
Well, it's trying to be fall. In Sacramento, we're still going through 100 degree weather here. It was in the high 90's yesterday. On the bright side, some trees are beginning to change color. Big smile on this girl's face!
Fall is coming. I LOVE fall. I am seriously SMITTEN with the colors and the crisp air and the way nature dances and changes everything in its final big hurrah before the quiet of winter.
Some years back before I gave away most of my decor for my move back East, I decorated for every season- especially fall. This month a part of me started missing that seasonal decorating. This weekend I decided to make a fall collage to put on my wall.
The fun thing about creating collages is that it's hard to mess up. The need for painting skill is limited. The most important skill to have is a bit of color knowledge and a willingness to have a bit of an adventure that could get messy! Keep reading and I'll tell you what you need to know about color- you probably already know quite a bit.
The deal I made with myself was this:
- I wanted to use the materials I had.
I had found canvases on clearance at Michaels a few weeks ago. (always check the clearance aisle, if one canvas gets nicked or bent, the whole pack gets marked down!)but everything else was found art supplies in my art bin.
- I didn't want to spend a week on this project. I wanted to spend no more than 2 sessions on this project.
Ultimately, it took about 4 -5 hours and I could have cut out about 2 hours of time (I'll share my time saving tip at the bottom of this post!)
- I wanted to use a limited paint palette, but I didn't want to use the traditional bold, primary colors of fall. My goal was to pull out some of the richer deeper colors- the cranberry, deep purple, rustic brown, and burnt orange echoing the leaves of the trees as they go through different color changes of the season.
So.....if you want to add a little DIY touch of fall to your wall, grab some paints, canvases, and paper and get going!
The Materials:
Canvas (I used 4 12x12 for this project)
Hodge Podge
old paper
paint (I used three colors plus burnt sienna and sand- a neutral off white)
paintbrushes
masking tape
rubber stamps (optional)
1. Start by adding a layer of paper to the canvas canvas. We're going to add dimension and depth to our collage with a layer of lovely papers.
Rip paper and apply to canvas with an old paintbrush or sponge brush and hodge podge. Make sure to paint the front and the back of the paper. I apply hodge podge on the back, then stick it to the canvas, then add another liberal application to the front. I try to get out all the wrinkles.
The background adds texture to the canvas. Only bits of it will end up showing through and technically you could do this project without this step. But I think it looks so much better with a the layers of paper underneath.
Because I was using what I had at home, I used some muted floral and design scrapbook paper I had. The colors were muted rose pink, shades of green, dark turquoise, and yellow ochre. Not exactly fall colors, but they blended nicely with the bold colors I painted under them.
If you wanted a uber-autumn-ish collage, fall scrapbook paper or magazine adds could be used. The other material I used was old pages ripped out of a book. I love the look of old writing; I've been using an old devotional that is falling apart and putting bits of it into my collages. There is a lot of old English script lettering on the pages that is quite ornate.
2. After the collage dries, apply masking tape in the shape of the letters. I wrote out the word 'fall'l, but you could do whatever word you wanted to! One layer of tape was not quite thick enough; I added a second layer. If you do this, be sure to overlap the layers so the paint doesn't seep in between them.
3. Rub your fingers over the tape. You want to be sure the paint doesn't get under the tape and mess up the integrity of the letters.
4. Get your paint ready.
Here is where you get basic paint & color theory: use a limited palette; choose three colors and blend them for each one of your canvases. If you start with a cadmium red medium hue to make a nice bright orange, but then change to an alizarin crimson for another canvas, the tones are off. It can be done, but it's tricky.
And we're not into tricky today; we're into decorating our wall for fall in less than 4 hours with our own DIY collage.
I created a color wheel of the colors I was using so I knew what color combinations I wanted and then used that to determine which colors went the best with each other.
Now that your paint is ready, take a wide brush and cover the entire canvas with it. Work the paint back and forth, making sure to cover the letter completely. The paint probably won't cover all the layers underneath- that's fine. It's fun to have word pits and floral designs peeking up from underneath; it adds to the mysteriousness and depth of the collage.
5. Do the same thing with each color.
If you want to use a straight color, go for it. You could use a primary yellow, red, mix yellow and red to make an orange and use a burnt sienna for the final canvas. Whatever you want to do.
6. When the paint is dry, remove the tape.
I recommend waiting about 90 minutes to two hours. Acrylic paint dries very quickly.
If you peel the tape off too early, the wet paint will merge onto the letter but if you wait too long (like overnight) the tape can rip off bits of the paper you want peek through.
I speak from experience on both of these issues. Experience and tears.
How to Make the Collage Pop
You could be done here but I like to add a bit of "blam" to make the collage pop.
When the paint is wet, I take a sponge and dab up some of the excess paint around the sides, lifting it off and revealing bits of the paper underneath.
I take the complementary color and dab it around the sides of the painting, just to add a bit of depth.
Instead of doing an "A" I could have done a big pumpkin. That would have gone well with the other big letters. Studies show our brains fill in missing letters to read words so I don't have to worry someone won't "get" the message on the wall. I ended up not liking the green "A" and put in the mixed media picture of the girl with the pumpkin. It's not quite a finished piece but I liked it more.
Stamps! I took rubber stamps I found for about a $1 at a local craft store last year, dipped them in the pain and stamped them on the edges after the canvas was dry. I did that right before I hung them up on the wall, subsequently getting paint all over my hands. Wait twenty minutes before hanging if you do this.
Time Saving Tip: I did the "F" first all the way through. It took the longest to do. For the remaining three, I became a mini-creative factory. I turned on the miniseries I was watching and did the hodge podge, the paint, and then the decorating in about two hours.
It can be fun to do one canvas at a time, but it takes so much longer. For canvas collages, batch, batch, batch.
What fall projects are you working on? Do you decorate for the autumn season? Leave a comment and share what you are doing!
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The post How to Create a Mixed Media Fall Collage for Your Wall appeared first on Launch Your Creative Life.