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One of the best habits I started (okay, it was a class assignment) when I was in art school was to keep a sketchbook. Eventually I quit worrying about how good or bad the drawing was and I just drew. If I really hated the drawing later, I would paste something over it. I recycled a lot of class assignments this way. There's always part of a painting or drawing that you like, and that's what I'd keep. 
It took me a while to figure out what was the best way to glue something in the sketchbook. After much experimentation, I found that the best glue for this kind of work (because I would often go back later and draw or paint on top of the collage) was acrylic medium. Acrylic matte medium is this opaque fluid generally used as a thinner for acrylic paints. You slap a healthy coat of the stuff on the sketchbook page, and paint the back of the item to be collaged with it as well. You have to work quickly - once the two matte medium-ed surfaces make contact, you don't have much time for repositioning. If there are airbubbles or wrinkles, a piece of cardboard can be used to squeege out the bumps. You can add an extra coat of matte medium on top of the collage to seal it. You can keep adding to the collage this way until it gets too thick and the binding breaks on your sketchbook.
Whenever the semester came to an end, I'd have a stack of illustrations on illustration board and watercolor paper and canvas paper, and a bunch of sketches from drawing class. I'd start cutting and pasting. It was often the most satisfying part of the whole art school process, looking back over full sketchpads, and ripping, shredding, cutting, and reassembling it into something new. I don't consider it art, but it was fun. |
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