Butterfly and Bird Collage

I had one more collage quilt top I made so will show it now before quilting. First things first, I layed out the papers and stamped images I wanted to use. ( Papers are the top layer only of printed napkins or hand towels.  The darker teal on outer edges is handmade paper from the art store.  The bottom soft green flourish is fairly large, so I will treat it with extra care when adhering to the mottled cotton yellow and sage background fabric.

The collage gluing process uses a brush and acrylic matte medium found at an art store.  For smaller paper pieces, I carefully brush matte medium on the back side of the tissue, then place it back side down on the fabric. For larger tissues, it may be easier to carefully brush matte medium on the fabric surface , then add paper. Either way, I brayer ("roll across the paper surface"to get it flat) the glued down  papers before carefully brushing a finish layer of matte medium atop the paper image. ( Be careful NOT to brush excess medium on the surrounding background fabric).  This will dry clear and without a shine.

You'll note I have also layered 2 different paper images using the same process of glueing down the background piece ( the soft sage colored flourish bottom left, and then a blue and yellow bird bottom center.) The 3 huddled chickadee birds are a pigment ink stamp. Something else to do with all those owned scrapbooking stamps.
 
When all is dry, I made a light mix of  brown Setacolor transparent paint to brush here and there creating a more antique look.

This is a pretty fun process all in all.  I do note that as the large piece dries fully, there is a wee bit of surface curl at the edges of the piece.... not a concern when quilting begins....

While I didn't feel the need on this piece, I will often at this stage ( all dry)  use prismacolor pencils to enhance color/values I think will be additive to the finished product.

When quilting begins, you CAN quilt through these  matte medium "glued-on" papers"  I tend to use a smaller microtex sharp needle ( no > size 70) which suggests a thread around 40 wt seems to work well.