How to Paint Collages on Canvas

By combining several elements and pictures onto one canvas, the painting becomes more visually stimulating.

Canvas painting can be fun, challenging and rewarding. To make your next painting more interesting, try creating a collage. By combining several elements and pictures onto one canvas, the painting becomes more visually stimulating. The viewer has more things to look at and the painter has more freedom with what to paint. You can paint several similar-looking images, surreal images of conceptually linking images, or just a collage of miscellaneous thoughts.

Things You'll Need

• Blank canvas
• Easel
• Acrylic paints
• Painting palette
• Paint brushes
• Newspaper
• Liquid hand soap

Instructions

Painting the Collage

1. Prepare your supplies. Set up the canvas on your easel. Dab a small amount of each paint color onto a painting palette. Lay out a newspaper underneath the canvas to catch dripping paint. Lay out another newspaper for your used brushes by your palette.

2. Visualize your painting. Think about what you will paint for each collage element and how each of those will affect the overall look and feel of the painting. Think about how each element in the collage will connect to each other, what color scheme you would like to use and the elements of the collage that you would like to highlight. Figure out the order, size, shape and color that you would like of each element to be.

3. Start painting. Grab a clump of paint from your palette with the tip of your paint brush. Use your brush to create your first collage element by painting lines, shapes and figures on your canvas. Start with the collage elements that you visualized to be in the background and/or not as important. Try to use a different paint brush every time you switch colors. If you only have a limited number of paint brushes, dab off excess paint when switching between similar colors and thoroughly clean the brush when switching to opposite colors.

4. Wait about an hour before painting collage elements that touch. To avoid undesired color blending, you want to make sure that the acrylic paint is dry before painting an overlapping collage element.

5. Clean up. To clean your paint brushes, wipe off excess paint onto the newspaper. Run the brush bristles under lukewarm water until the water runs clear. Pour a small amount of liquid hand soap into your hand, then rub the brush bristles into the soap for a couple minutes. Run the brush through lukewarm water again to wash away the soap. Dry the bristles using the newspaper. Throw away all the newspaper and put away your painting supplies.

Tips & Warnings

• If you decide to use oil paints for this project, remember that it may take each color at least a couple days to dry. Only paint one collage element at a time to prevent color blending. To clean your oil paint brushes, wipe off excess paint, rinse in liquid paint thinner, wash in your hand with a lather of liquid hand soap, then wipe off all liquids.

References

• Learn to Art: Cleaning Paint Brushes