Active Quest: Mixed Media Skills
August 10, 2015: While my friend was visiting, we stopped at JoAnn's Fabric and I bought a new book by Jane Davenport called Beautiful Faces: The Mixed Media Portait Workshop. Lots of pretty girlies drawn with colored pencils and then painted with acrylics, watercolors, pastels, more colored pencils, and inks. I tried out the first exercise which was just drawing what she calls "Draw Happy" faces, copying the same image over and over, a simplified face, and add color as desired. So, I did this over a couple days in my fat orange sketch book, drawing and shading with Prismacolor Verithins and coloring with Prismacolor Nupastels, a little ink from Faber-Castell PITT pens XS and S and Sakura Gelly Roll white gel pen. You spend time on these as a warm up to move on to more technical drawing skills which I started today and was happy to learn that the sketches really did help. I thought I would get overwhelmed and quit when I started working on the harder stuff. Nope! . . . Not yet. And I learned that I really like sketching with violet, tuscan red, peacock green, and peacock blue.
June 25, 2015: A few weeks ago I was naughty and bought a stack of books when I was supposed to just be waiting for my husband to call back to say if he wanted to meet for lunch. One of the used books was Journal Revolution by Linda Woods and Karen Dinino. Lots of simple yet impactful art journaling projects and techniques. I was in a creaive slump, it was hot and stuffy outside and inside, and I wanted to do sometime but I didn't wanna do aaaanythiiiiing. My coffeetable was covered in junk, no where to put my feet or glass of water, so I cleared off a small stack of magazines and set them on the floor to be taken out later. They sat there for a while because taking out recycling was especially hard that week just because it was. And then I looked through the book and inspiration told me to just sit and cut out words and phrases (as the authors suggested) from the magazines and then send them to the recycling bin. So I did and put all those clippings in a little tin to be used at a later date.
May 26, 2015: While sitting around because of fatigue crud, I looked through a mixed media book I bought last year that I never got around to looking at beyond the first few pages. Found at Michael's, it's called Acrylic Techniques in Mixed Media: Layer, Scribble, Stencil, Stamp by Roxanne Padgett. It turns out to be a good book for me; it got me all squirmy and anxious to try some of the techniques. It mostly focused on what the title says: smearing paint, scribbling, and stenciling. The point is to create colorful papers to use in mixed media projects. You create your own supply of awesome craft paper. The projects in the back mostly consist of making journals and books which is what's been speaking to me lately. So, despite the fatigue, I bought a few supplies at Michaels, took a breather, and then cleared a space on my craft table and went at it, using stencils I already owned. Papers I used: dictionary pages, lined notebook paper with writing, printed cross stitch pattern, and scrapbook paper. One of my next steps will be to make custom stencils by cutting shapes from manila file folders.
April 28, 2015: Sharing a weird mixed media piece I did just because. Mushrooms sending their spores all over a happy childlike drawing. With glitter.
February 6, 2015: Recycled paper beads made by me after watching Jennibellie’s video for recycled flat beads.
Materials used: garbage/recycling, acrylic paint, glue, and Ranger Glaze Accents.
February 5, 2015: Second photo represents the majority of my latest stuff: doodling. I’m a little embarrassed that I had to buy a book on doodling but, you know, it’s been since middle school, it’s been a while since I’ve sat down and made scribbly marks on stuff. So I bought Creative Doodling and Beyond by Stephanie Corfee probably from Michaels with the intention of incorporating doodling in my mixed media stuff. I was surprised when drawing little circles became easier and they started looking more like circles than squashed sixes.
January 15, 2015: I bought a basic figure drawing book the other day at JoAnns because I don’t have basic figure drawing skills and I keep seeing videos, tutorials, and books on mixed media and art journaling and such that I feel my inability to passably draw is holding me back. I don’t care to get super-good and technical, but if the mood strikes, it would be nice to sketch out a face without it taking two hours of frustration trying to get something decent. These sketches were done over a couple days. The very sad face in the middle was drawn on the first day. The awesome one in the top right was drawn the second day (yesterday) and I am really proud of her. Go me!