A new painting /collage started

I had a magazine picture of Rudolf N. the great Russian ballet master, and I liked the pose, so started this with that as an inspiration. Here are pics as it progresses. My friend Francis gave me an old mat which I am collaging and will paint to bring the piece into one, with three levels. Here are the pics.

I started by painting the background and Rudolf in the blues and greesn against the arches. I didn't like that, so cut out two thicknesses of watercolor paper and collaged them together to give them some depth, then painted and glazed it. My thought was that it will raise him away from the background. But then what? At the last minute at the senior center yesterday, Francis took out some older mats she didn't want, and one fit my painting. But, I didn't like the color. So I went ahead and collaged it with torn papers, and sealed it with liquid gel medium and titan buff liquid acrylic paint. I'll be playing around with it some more this weekend. And then I'll return to this post to put up the finished picture. UpdatedJuly 24.