A mixed media journey

Mixed media is often describe as art that use two or more creative mediums.

I am a highly visual creative, inspired and drawn in with colour, shapes and the unfolding story that is felt within my soul yet I also like to feel through touching and creating the artwork with interactive experiences so I began my journey into mixed media not truly knowing that mixed media was. I later learned what I was already exploring forms of mixed media through mixing soft and oil pastels together with gel pens.

When I was first introduced to mixed media I found a new love for paint which I haven’t experienced before, my first teacher encouraged us to not use paint brushes and to find a range of items to layer paint including our hands, brayers, credit or gift cards, knives even the bottom of paint tubes got used to paint onto my surface and sometimes left interesting texture. I also found my inner collector inspired, she started seeing how unwanted items could be reused within the process, creating dimensions, texture, patterns, lines, shape there was a new depth and joy being expressed creatively that invited my inner child to play while pushing personal boundaries.

Mixed media was freeing and in someways rebellious being able to break rules while exploring different mediums - there was a playfulness that flowed through me and I found an inner curiosity to explore while being unafraid to get messy while allowing the process to unfold without to much control - I entered this journey to get curious, to push my personal and spiritual boundaries, to heal and to experiment while learning hands on how to use different mediums - I had some experience with a few mediums, some mediums I had a love hate relationship with and other mediums that I loved to use but felt something was missing, my hope was to explore and expand my creative expression by meeting the joy and fears in all the mediums allowing something beautiful and magical unfold

MIXED MEDIA PAINTING

This was the first type of known mixed media I explored, I used acrylics, water in a spray bottle, black and white ink and pastels in soft and oil mediums

Colour mixing and exploring different ways to apply paint was one of my biggest learnings being able to step away from rules and experiment was a bit of a process there were layers of beliefs that came up and needed to be worked through mostly around letting the ‘good girl’ go and giving her the space to rebel and be free, also the beliefs I held that I’m not an artist and art is a waste of time and will never pay started to reveal some of their layers.

One of my colour mixing challenges was an exercise to create two art works the challenge was you were limited to three chosen colours and white in this exercise it was suggested our three chosen colours were - one favourite, one neutral and one you were NOT fond of and was white was our free colour. We were then told we could mix our colours to created different colours so the colour blending experiments began.

I also enjoyed exploring intuitive markings by using my non dominate hand, loosely holding pens, pastels and sticks dipped in ink. At first judgment and thoughts rose around it not looking pretty, it doesn’t make sense, a level of taught perfectionism was guiding these thoughts being told it’s not right, or not good enough soon started to give way to my imagination and playful inner child and her innocence to follow what felt good and joyous to her.

MIXED MEDIA COLLAGE

I explored this on canvas and in an art journal - with collage the acrylic paint stayed and I added a whole range of items like wool, lace, material scraps, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, wallpaper, die cuts, pages from old books, receipts, buttons, diamantés, paint pens, nothing was off limits,

Touch, feeling are high for me on the creative expression experience so when I was learning different mixed media techniques I would run my hand over the piece, there as often a warm expansion felt in the heart whenever I felt cold or uncomfortable bits it was an invitation to get curious what was missing? What was rising? What whisper was calling to be explored or release?

My biggest takeaway is my mental health issues really started to de-escalate when I moved through this feeling process, there’s a saying an artist leaves a piece of there soul in every creation and I definitely believe apart of my story is weaved into every piece I created sharing a thread that inspires, heals and activates others who see the work through their own personal journey of beliefs and experiences.

Mark making was taken up a notch when I started exploring collage and recycled items along with stencils and stamps were introduced.

MIXED MEDIA DIGITAL

I explored this through the lens of photo manipulation which didn't feel as fun and messy as the painting and collage and then I started to learn and play with different layers through digital collage as I moved my symbol artwork to digital.

The digital collage lights me up as it evolves by layering I especially enjoy being able to bring my hand drawn elements together with photos and mixing those with digital elements from different apps and programs.

I really enjoyed using Adobe draw and sketch until they decided to retire these apps it took a while to learn how to use them but I became quite comfortable with the quality of art I was producing within them. Once these apps were retired I tried moving to other apps but I lost my creative flow for a while learning new apps can be fun but when you use them within your business it can be a little frustrating and time consuming to learn something new especially to be able to produce the same quality of work.

Over time I did start playing with new apps and I have found my flow and expanded what I was creating it took a while to find apps that felt right I'm currently loving procreate in it's simple form and I am excited to invest in some new add ons for this and I'm learning Adobe fresco - but my key is remembering trail and error is how I best learn I made the space to play for fun and this opened up the space for my art within my business to be fun once again.

TIPS

• Start explore using media you are familiar with mediums that you love to use, then explore unfamiliar ones

• Anything goes there is no fixed rules

• Stay curious learning unfolds within play and experimenting without judgement

Some of my current go to's are digital, watercolour and ink, poly clay with foil and glitter and mixed media college creations.

Have you explored mixed media before?

What challenged you?

What did you love?