My top 20 favorite supplies for collage

I decided to expand my list of collage supplies and have come up with my top 20.

If you click on the products below you'll be directed to Amazon.com and other sources for more information on the product. If you decide to buy them, I suggest trying local first, especially if you're in Austin since Jerry's Artarama should have most items. 

1. For a surface, Da Vinci century panels and Ampersand boards or Rives BFK. 
2. Art Boards Gesso (smooth but pricey). My fall back is Jerry's Artist's Gesso. I use a crappy brush to apply gesso since it tends to dry really fast--sometimes quicker than I rinse my brushes.
3. Sandpaper plus a respirator if using (3M respirator cartridges rock.)
4. Golden Fluid Acrylics. I have a palette that I like and pretty much stick to.
5. Pencils, mostly in the B family, and an eraser. I like Staedtler Mars plastic ones. Cretacolor Graphit Aquarell pencils give awesome graphite washes. Metal pencil sharpener a must.
6. x-acto knife with all kinds of blades, especially no. 11
7. Collection of old prints, art papers, interesting receipts or ephemera
8. Scissors! Need to have an itty-bitty and a regular-sized super-sharp pair 
9. Winsor and Newton India ink in black, as well as a quill pen with different nibs. I use Faber-Castell artist pens sometimes too.
10. Watercolor pencils, such as Derwent and Staedtler. I like Caran D'ashe watercolor crayons on occasion too (great for face painting, too!). Brushes, square and round.
11. Derivan liquid pencil in grey 9.
12. As an adhesive, Golden Gel Medium Soft Gel (matte or gloss, depending on preference) plus Liquitex gel medium for lighter papers.
13. Old telephone book for gluing plus cut up credit cards as an applicator
14. Tracing paper in it's utilitarian use or as a transparent layer.
15. Tissue paper. As a texture I like to crinkle it up and glue it down using Liquitex gel medium.
16. Metal ruler for tearing papers or for measuring
17. Blue shop paper towels. Perfect for dabbing a color that's too intense or drying off a brush. These paper towels are pricey but they last.
18. Drafting dust brush. Great for clearing your area of eraser nubs or animal hair before you glue. 
19. Heavy books used as weight with a layer of parchment paper to catch any extraneous adhesive. This keeps the collage from getting all wavy in wetted areas.
20. Computer. I use this a lot for research or to scan an image and reverse it for an image transfer. Sometimes I'll take an old sketch and want it larger for the piece but lack the confidence to draw it freehand without seeing it larger. So I'll tinker with it in Photoshop or Gimp (Photoshop-like and free) and print out a copy that I can cut out and trace points to follow when drawing in the rest of it freehand. 

I had fun with this collage. There's a hidden message shown here.

For ever more it's taped up. I knew I'd fit in a fossil we found on our hike yesterday!











The tags, that looks suspiciously like Christmas tree ornaments, were inspired by a page I found in a magazine about writing down things one is thankful for and having them on display.