Before painting begins...

My favorite thing about collage work, is that I have often started a piece weeks before I've prepped my canvas... Prepping papers is one of those things I do. Here are some papers I made over the summer with National Geographic and Citrasolv... 

This is how they are made...

1. Find old copies of National Geographic magazines. 

2. Get ready for a bit of a stinky mess. So work outside, or in a well-ventilated area. Lay down several sheets of newspapers and wear protective clothing.

4. Make a tiny hole in the paper seal of a fresh bottle of CitraSolv with a sharp knife.

Using full strength CitraSolv (Valencia Orange), open the magazine, and generously sprinkle the pages. Pages with photographs turn out best, so use those. 

5. Check every 20 minutes. Don't worry if the pages stick together. Your pages should start to look like abstracted images. This usually takes days in winter, and can really smell up your garage, but takes less then a day in the summer.