Canvas Collage with Niche

I have to give credit 100% to Carine who teaches at Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley for this workshop i shared with my altered book round robin group on Sunday. I took her collage class last year and created a magnificent art piece that graces my living room wall.
When i showed it to my group - they all wanted to know how to do it. It was tricky turning a 6 hour workshop into a two hour class, well less than that if you factor in our altered book swap "show and tell".

I found the 1 1/2 inch gallery style canvases cheap on Dick Blik, if you order in bulk - it's the way to go. Or use your Michael's coupon or around here there is a place called Aaron Brothers that has a annual buy-one-get-one for a cent canvas sale.
The best part of this workshop was using Italian renaissance style images - from a very expensive art book bought oh man so cheap (like $3.79) from a clearance table at big box book store. At that price why make colour copies? Or scan the images? Just use the originals cut right out of the book!
The niche is made of foam core and covered with thin paper and inserted into the canvas. I won't reveal the secrets as to how - you can take Carine's class!
With a simple background of subtle scrapbook paper and a bold image, cropped to advantage, the effect is striking. Keep in mind none of us actually finished our collages or added any objets to our niche. In some of these pics the glue wasn't even dry!
It will be interesting to see how they end up. Do you like the simplicity as they are now? Or should they be "junked up" a bit more? I especially love how Shanna's has the blue sky from her image as the paper inside the niche. I used the same original vintage pen and ink letter i used in my first collage to tie the two together.