Carrie Burns Brown: Water Media Collage Workshop

Carrie Burns Brown, NWS brings your collages to a new level. 

Learn to make your own richly textured papers and personalized stamps, plus develop your own rainbow array of light-safe papers.

Carrie Burns Brown shows you how to sandwich fibers and combine and alter pre-existing materials to make them more personal, satisfying and unique. You learn how to use color harmonies and simple design structure to strengthen your work. Carrie Burns Brown is an inspiration. You wont want to wait to get started!

Carrie Burns Brown's one-of-a-kind art collages are born of her love of making her own richly textured materials. She incorporates everyday items like coffee grounds, newspapers, and light bulb cartons to add depth and variety to her art. In this workshop, Carrie shows you every step in creating her water media collage, from staining paper to making her own stamps.

She begins by creating an array of decorative papers. You'll learn to enhance tissue paper and rice paper with stains, gesso, string, and metallic paint. Carrie creates patterns with custom-made stamps and adds character to the paper with her well-worn brayer. She even turns an ordinary light bulb carton into an elegant design.

Carrie offers both artistic and practical tips on making your own materials. She shares her techniques for staining, painting, and drying beautiful papers without making a mess in your studio.

As she prepares for the final collage, Carrie offers methods for effective and archival combination of materials. She discusses light-safe papers, quality of store-bought materials, and long-lasting pigments. You'll discover how to use gloss medium as an adhesive and as an aesthetic enhancer and even how to incorporate Elmer's glue in your work without sacrificing long-term survivability.

You'll follow Carrie's design process as she begins with a simple grid and modifies it into an elegant collage. Along the way she demonstrates techniques for creating textures, edges, and patterns. She unlocks the mystery of abstract composition, teaching you to follow your instincts and pay attention to detail.

You'll see Carrie test, combine, and modify her array of patterns and papers until each corner of her collage feels unified and complete. By the end of the workshop you'll have the tools to create unique and vibrant abstract compositions. To enrich your art with custom materials and layered design, join Carrie Burns Brown in Water Media Collage.

BONUS CLIP: Textured Papers

In this clip from her video, Water Media Collage Workshop, mixed media artist Carrie Burns Brown creates handmade, textured papers using coffee grounds, string, and acrylic medium. Carrie shows you how to tint and seal these striking, three-dimensional collage elements and shares examples of variations on the string technique.