Mixing it up with mixed media art

Mixed media is using different techniques and bringing it all together on one canvas, usually layered on top of each other.  I've seen this effect many times so wanted to try it out for myself.

After many hours scouring the internet I happened upon an artist called Ann Baldwin and I loved her work and she has also produced a book called Creative Paint Workshop which I can highly recommend.

Here is my first piece of mixed media art called Identity created from acrylics, pen and ink, crayons and collage. If you want to find out how I did it then read on.

  

First of all I gessoed the canvas. It was my first time using it and apparently Gesso seals the canvas so paint doesn’t seep through. As I was going to layer stuff on I thought it a good idea. 

I stuck a few things down that I'd created (using Matte Medium) and put purple and green acrylic paint all over the canvas and a bit of tissue paper, then sealed it all with Matte Medium.  I used a sponge for most of the paint work.

 

Then I added more purple in certain areas and crayoned in a figure and added Who am I?  Some areas I ‘sent back’ by painting over them.

 

Using orange paint wrote on the canvas top left and bottom right and also used some lime green paint. I was going for a 'pop art' type of colour with lime green and purple.

 

Then I put Matte Medium over the whole canvas and went to bed!  The next day I added a softer purple and the barcode. I wrote on the pound signs with black ink and drew a car in black crayon and stuck it on with matte medium.

 

I stuck some crosswords on and then created a Venetian-style mask with pen and inks and stuck it on.  I painted over the Who Am I’s a bit more to fade them in to the background and stuck the identity quotes on too. I wanted the mask and these quotes to be at the fore of the finished painting so didn't paint over them.

 

After leaving it overnight the final thing I did was to darken up a couple areas (see top photo) and then it was done!

 

 

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