Portrait Collage Ideas – Vintage Family Photos

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco’s Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Eldest Son was created from hand-printed, archival tissue papers, torn and assembled as a portrait collage of two figures. The faces of each figure were painted loose and expressive on top of torn, layered papers, with watercolor and gouache. You can do this too, so let’s take a look at the steps and the supplies you’ll need.

While stamping, tearing and gluing at a lovely art-making-party hosted by a friend (now there’s an idea, right?), I started the portrait collage in this post, and finished it later in the studio. Gather your family around a table, and have a blast making collage portraits with just a few, simple supplies.

Torn Paper Portrait Collage Supply Links

• Lineco Tissue paper
• Acrylic Paint Set
• Illustration Board
• Acrylic Gloss Medium and Varnish
• Rubber Stamps
• Foam Brushes
• Rags for clean up and wiping drips
• Paint Brushes
• Reference photos

Magic Tissue Paper

We started our portrait collage day with Lineco Buffered Tissue Paper and acrylic paint. You can tear, cut and crinkle Lineco tissue paper. It’s acid free, and perfectly suited for collage. Painting the tissue with different colors in acrylics works well because it dries fast, and toughens the tissue paper. (Pre-colored tissue paper is not acid-free or lightfast, so it’ll break down and fade over time.) My painted Lineco tissue sheets dried in minutes, and then I stamped all sorts of patterns on the colors (see below). Homemade abstract wrapping paper!

Lineco tissue paper is very thin – like tracing paper. When you apply acrylic paint to a sheet (use brushes or a foam roller), you’ll get some rippling, but it won’t matter. Once you start tearing, cutting and applying your colored and patterned pieces to illustration board, re-wetting the torn pieces with gloss medium and varnish flattens everything out. And the wrinkles and creases in your finished collage add lovely handmade character.

Torn Paper Portrait Pattern Stamping

While building your inventory of Lineco tissue sheets, think about contrast, and pattern. Paint some tissue sheets in light, pastel shades. Paint another set in dark, rich hues. And then stamp dark color onto light sheets, and light hues on dark sheets. Make sense?

Try not to be too fussy with coloring your tissue, or laying the pattern on it. Apply your colors quick, and move onto the next sheet. When stamping, move your hand frog-style, leaping from spot-to-spot on the tissue. Be random in your pattern making and color. Work fast, because you’ll be tearing the tissue into strips and squares and shapes. In little bits and pieces, your “composition” in color and pattern won’t matter.

Illustration Board & Gloss Medium

I used illustration board as my backing. That stuff is sturdy and won’t warp from applying wet swatches of tissue in layers. I used Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish to adhere to tissue to the board. Later, when I was painting details on the portrait, I used watercolor and gouache. You can use the same acrylic paint applied to your tissue.

Pull Inspiration from Family Photo Albums

A slide snapped in the early 1960′s was my reference photo for this art. I printed the image as an 8×10 for reference (you can see it to the left below). A vintage tv and curtains was part of the original sketch, but there was enough complexity around the figures already. Don’t feel burdened to copy your reference photo exactly; add and take away parts to make it work for you. Transparent veils of warm white acrylic were painted behind the figure to knock back the busy background pattern, and mimic light coming from the left.

What If I Can’t Draw Well?

What can you do to create figurative portrait collages if drawing and representational art is not your strong suit? I have another collage portrait method for you in the next post. No drawing skills needed, but it’s just as fun as this method, and you’ll use all the same supplies. Are you interested?

Stay tuned my friend! We’re going to use every art supply assembled here to make totally fun portrait collages, with no drawing. We need a dose of easy these days, don’t you think? I’ve got a simple art-making project for you that will fit the bill. And its family-friendly too. Gather your supplies, make some tissue paper backgrounds to be ready, and we’ll get started in the next post.

Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you at the art table,

Belinda

P.S. There is a new art group on Facebook called The Art Refuge. All skill levels from novice to expert are invited to join. The purpose is just what the title implies: it’s a refuge to look at and share art as a salve in chaotic times. You can participate in twice weekly art challenges to keep your hands busy and your eyes off the bad news.

Art Quote

Social gatherings brought other teenagers to our home, and for the first time Sandy (Alexander Calder 1898-1976) and I became aware of the general attitude towards nudity. We were surprised and embarrassed for reasons we could not understand by the sly looks and salacious remarks of two boys from Ossining. Mortified, I went weeping to Mother, who tried earnestly but unsuccessfully to explain why charcoal drawings of nudes by my parents’ friends Robert Henri and Everet Shinn were ART and therefore acceptable for living room display, whereas photographs of undressed persons were not.  Having been surrounded by paintings and statues of unclothed figures all our lives, Sandy and I had never given the matter much thought. Suddenly, the attitudes of our new friends became all-important, and the next time they came, we took down the offending drawings and hid them behind the piano.

Margaret Calder Hayes ~Three Alexander Calders, 1977

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