Gesso to transform magazine pages for collage

After the Storm

After reading a recent post by Martha Marshall about painting magazine pages to use for collage I decided to spend a few hours with my pot of gesso and a few decorating magazines. I ended up with a big stack of interesting paper which, coupled with some of my painted tissue papers, are great fun to use.  I called this one "After the Storm" because it reminds me of dark skies and whirling winds contrasted with blue sky and autumn color breaking through.

I particularly like this method of concealing the images on the original pages and changing them into something that shows my own hand at work, yet takes advantage of the ink colors.

(I'm having trouble with Blogger so I couldn't add the size to the caption... It's 6.5" x 8", matted in an 8x10 mat.)

I've had success with keeping a few different sized mats near my collage table to audition the art I'm making. As I work I view the piece through a mat window and it give me a good sense of what work is still needed or whether I'm finished.