Altered Canvas by Astrid

There is no doubt about it, collage is one of my all time favourite techniques and the Artistic Stampers stamps lend themselves so well for this.
Here is a list of the stamps I used for this project:
Postage 1
Ephemera 1
Chickenwire Background
Speckle 4 x 6
Journaling Words II
Time & Keys

I started by covering a canvas of 6 x 8 " with random bits of paper and strips of Wasi tape from my stash using Claudine Hellmuth Matte Medium. Next I covered it with a thin wash of Gesso I then stamped some images from the Ephemera 1 and Postage 1 plates on smooth white card in Black Archival Ink, coloured them with Vintage Photo Distress Inks, cut them out and also adhered them to the canvas in more or less random places. I also added a vintage photo from my stash

Next I added some texture paste through a couple of Dylusions Stencils and some background stamping with the Speckle and Chicken wire background stamps in Coffee Archival Ink. Then I  some wasi tape in carefully selected places to give a pleasing (I hope) composition to my collage. The next step was to cover the photo with a baby wipe and add a few spritzes of Perfect Pearls Mist in Patina Blue and Dylusions Spray in Melted Chocolate to add some more colour. It needed something more so I added some elements from the Time & Keys plate, stamped and cut out as before this time also adding some Broken China Distress Ink.

Now for the final step: I inked the edges with some Dark Brown chalk ink from my stash and then added some shading with a charcoal pencil to add more depth. I also added a tiny bit of white shading with a white pen on the photo to make it pop a bit more, added a charm and that was it. 

Here are some detail pictures still

Hope you enjoyed this project and will give collage a go.