Today I am going to work on the Ooh La La Lady collage art project, shading areas around the main image. This is a great way to get your focal point to pop!
If you have never heard of it, magazine collage is a super fun way to make art without having to be an “Artist”. You can use magazine images, combined in a fun way to make collage art!
Shading Magazine Collage Walkthrough Video
Before Shading
Here is the piece before doing any shading or doodling… right now it is just pieces of magazines laid out on a page and it is okay-ish.
You can see a little bit of her future glory, but right now she is looking like a bit of a hot mess!
I do love the color palette of acid green and orange that is the background and border for this piece.
Adding Painted Elements
The next step in the process for me is to add painted elements to the collage pieces.
Because of the Eiffel Tower I decided this would be a French Madame who was lazing around all day in her pocketbook hat and jammies.
After writing in the words and adding flowers and dots around the border I got to shading!
The Shading Process
I shaded around the gal in black and added a dot-dash line to make her pop off the page.
I also shaded the inside of the board and around the flowers and grapes. I like a really dark and broody piece, if you wanted it more light and bright you could shade in orange or green.
I used Farber Castell Pitt pens for the shading and a white Posca Pen to do the dashed line.
The Ooh La La Lady
Here is the final piece! She turned out so amazing… I love how much just painting her eyes and adding highlights finishes off the work!
Notes From This Art
There were a few things that came up in doing this piece that I think you might like knowing about!
Old Magazines, Inchies and Paint
Oh my gosh, there are so many pieces of this artwork! I got her body from magazine pages from a 1980s Cosmo magazine like I read in high school, used background papers made from tissue paper and waxed paper and painted a bunch of dots, flowers and eyeballs!
Collage is such a fun way to take old pieces of paper and turn them into beautiful artwork with just a few magazine clippings!
Sticking Stuff Down
I used a number of different kinds of glue in this piece!
First off I used matte medium to stick down the backgrounds. For this project I used Tim Holtz collage medium but you could use Mod Podge or Liquitex Matte Medium instead.
Functionally because I was covering such a large area in my art journal and wanted to have a stable background to create on, using a spreadable glue was the best solution!
Then I used Nuvo glue to stick down the magazine and border pieces. It doesn't really matter what kind of glue you use (even a glue stick) as long as you can get the pieces stuck down good!
Shading Your Own Collages Wrapup
I hope you had fun watching me work on this gal! She turned out so fun and cute… I really do love her so much… magnifique!
If you are thinking of trying magazine collage, just DO IT! Pull out some magazine pages, cut out some simple shapes or images and get to glueing!
Here are some more magazine collage articles you might like:
- Magazine Collage Art Ideas and Inspiration – A Free Mini Course
- Junk Journal Magazine Collage Process – Embossing How To Tutorial
- The Best Kinds of Glue In Magazine Collage
