Michelle G Brown | Mixed Media Art

Stencilling onto a Mixed Media Canvas

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Michelle Brown is back in the Mixed Media Art Studio for the New Year and is having fun painting and stencilling mixed media canvases.

Ready to stencil with sequin scrap

Now that the base layers are complete, it’s time to add some stenciling and other interesting features. Michelle runs through her thinking process for adding this layer, covering colors, placement of stenciling and the key to getting it right!

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Resources:

  • Paints – Dylusions and Dina Wakely
  • Paint Brushes – Dina Wakely
  • Sequence scrap – medium circles, small circles and squares
  • Stencil – designed by Rebekah Meier, The Crafters Workshop TCW495S
  • Canvas – 10″x 16″ Xpress Graphx

stencilling with acrylic paints~ * ~

We’d love to hear from you – please leave a comment and tell us how YOU like to add stencilling to your mixed media canvases and other art work. What works for you? What are your biggest challenges? What are some of the mistakes you take care to avoid?

Happy creating,
Michelle

 

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Black Altered Book Page

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This article is written by Linda Giese

The process and materials for this page spread are fairly easy, but when people turn the page and come upon it, they often say,”Wow!”  It is bright and active with a lot of pattern and color.

Materials & Tools

  • Americana lamp black acrylic paint in the bottle(not tube paint)
  • 3-5 different sheets(I used some scraps) of origami paper.

mixed media collage

  • Scissors
  • Small punch like heart, flower or star
  • Aleenes tacky glue (or other white glue)
  • Sakura metallic gelly roll pen set, 10 count.
    [Ignore my note on the package, “can’t mod podge over”.  You can work over the pens if you let them dry completely first.]

mixed media pens

Technique

mixed media collage

1. Paint your page spread with black acrylic . Let dry.

2. Cut and punch origami paper and adhere with glue. Origami paper comes in two styles.  The washi papers are more expensive and have a toothy, fibrous texture.  The less expensive papers are like thin wood pulp papers.   For punches the less expensive papers work better.  I used washi for the corners and some cut papers.  I tried to spread the colors around the page with some of the flowers going off the edge.  This way you can punch partial flowers along the edges of your papers to use every pretty bit of them.  I apply a small amount of glue with a toothpick so I don’t get it on the other parts of the background which makes the surface better for the pen work.

3. Draw a pathway (or several of them) with one of your pens to contain your writing.  You can write a favorite quote, something you want to say, or perhaps about your joy in creating art.  I used words I had chosen on the page spread (before I painted with black) to tell me what to write.  One page had the words “the technique” and the other “between two extremes”.  On the technique page I drew the parallel lines over half the page spread and expanded them as needed.

mixed media collage and writing

On the extreme page I wound my lines across both pages and turned and came all the way back across. I used my spears of origami paper to help find the route.  My words happened to cover it all.  I don’t preplan, just start writing, but if they hadn’t filled the space, I may have filled in the line with stars or other symbols.  I don’t really stress over it.

4. The last part is all the fun.  I usually begin with borders along my lines.  These can be as simple or elaborate as you like.  Then I start to fill in areas with my favorite zentangle patterns.I try to repeat patterns in different areas and to repeat colors in the same way.  This helps move your eye around the composition.

There are wonderful zentangle books and many online sites for patterns.  Zentangle was created by artists Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.  Their website is www. zentangle.com  Other sites I like are www.LifeImitatesDoodles.blogspot.com and TanglePatterns.com

Finishing

I put a coat of gloss varnish over the extreme page spread.  Although I like the look of acrylic paint with varnish over it, I think it detracts from the brightness of the metallic pens.  The technique page has no finish on it.  I hope you have as much fun as I did with this page spread.

I encourage questions and comments!

Hugs to you,

Linda

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Linda Giese encourages comments, questions, and sharing your art journey at linda.giese@yahoo.com

She teaches classes privately and at a local scrapbook store, The Stamp Addict

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Making Greeting Cards from Recycled Art Scraps

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This article is written by Laura Shelton Thykeson

I know that there are many, many artists that make their own beautiful and original greeting cards for all occasions, and they have so many creative ways to do it! I love the variety and beautiful cards I see out there. I wanted to write a short tutorial for those who may be just beginning to venture into this fun field and are maybe looking for some easy tips and techniques.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

The card I have made may not be to everyone’s taste, but I love mixing up colors, textures and designs to really make for an interesting card to look at. It has several elements, but it is really easy once you know the details and instructions.

Materials

Below is a list of supplies you will need:

  1. Blank watercolor card w/envelope, or a piece of cardstock if you would rather work with that. You will have to cut and fold your cardstock over in half to make the card shape.
  2. Bits and pieces of our recycled art, old art journal pages, paint splattered pieces of papers, collage material, pretty paper napkins, stamps (optional), any 3d embellishments you choose. (I chose the yellow sunflowers for added texture, ribbons, buttons, sequins, etc….
  3. Coordinating scraps of “stencil play” pages, scraps of cardstock that may not be your favorites and you won’t be using for anything else.
  4. ATC’s in abstract, colorful and textured designs, or even postcards you have made that you don’t mind cutting up to reuse

Instructions:

  • After you have chosen your blank watercolor card or made one from cardstock, take your colored papers and glue and layer them on the front page of the card to start your colorful background. This is layer 1. I used a piece of brown paper, with a stencil design of a tree that I had been playing around with in an old art journal.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

  • Once that is dry, open up your card and spread glue or your fav adhesive all over both sides of the inside pages of the card. Then take the paper napkin and lay over the glue, pressing and smoothing to get any wrinkles out. It is ok if you have some wrinkling, because the texture is always nice, but for this card I wanted it smooth. Let this dry well.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

  • Using your choice of stamps (optional), or if you prefer your own handwriting, add some cool sayings or words on the inside of the card.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

  • I also ran across another old ATC size scrap of art that caught my eye, and using decorative scissors, I trimmed all around the edges of the card to give it some interest and texture, then glued it to the right side page of the inside of the card to finish it out.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

  • Now, take any old ATC’s, collage papers, gelli print papers, etc and cut them into triangles. Take these triangles and glue them to the corners of the front of your card to add more color and texture. If you are using an old ATC, cut it first in half, then cut the two halves into triangles by cutting from opposite corners to make the triangles. Also add some stamped words.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

  • At the bottom of the front page of my card, I cut small strips of abstract, glittery watercolor paper scraps I had painted a long time ago, and glued them on as stems for the 3D yellow sunflowers that I added at the last minute.

Handmade Greeting Cards are quick and easy to make

This is a really fun and easy way to make a unique and interesting card for any occasion! Using different papers, napkins, stamps etc, you can fashion it to fit any occasion. I really hope you have enjoyed learning how to recycle scraps into something both unique AND useful!

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Laura Thykeson has been totally immersed in mixed media art for many years. She discovered altered books and art journals about a year ago and have been hooked ever since! She has always loved mixed media art because of the variety and the “no rules” aspect! Laura lives in Granbury, Texas USA.

You can see more of Laura’s work at Taz’s Corner

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Mixed Media Art Backgrounds

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This article is written by Linda Giese

For the past year I’ve been putting papers over my plastic covered workspace. It began when I found a roll of thermofax for a dollar at a thrift store.  I put it on my workspace and soon it filled up with random stamps, paint splatters, doodles and notes.  I tore off another sheet and saved the first for collage fodder. I progressed to large sheets of newsprint that came as packing material in boxes.  A friend even gave me old architectural plans she was going to throw away.

Backgrounds

This is an easy way of making original collage papers to make your art unlike anyone else, and it won’t even take extra time!  Now I glory in messing up my surface papers with ideas and oversprays.  Since I teach at my dining room table, there are class notes and ideas for what my students want to learn next.  I test out new stamps and “stamp off” ones I’m using.  There are scribbles trying to get a pen to write or see what color it is.  Sometimes there is even a random fruit label!

Backgrounds

I’m not likely to run out of clean papers to mess up, but thought of an idea if I did.  I’d take sheets of junk mail with clean backs and tape them together.  Or as I’ve done, use sheets of scrapbook paper I don’t like that perhaps came in a stack of paper.  If you take a class, perhaps you can mess up newspapers under your work there too!  Good luck and happy splatters!

Backgrounds

Materials I used for my canvas:
Underpainting is blended background of Americana orchid, butter and baby blue
I applied the torn collage papers with Americana DecouPage as well as the Dover clip art woman image
I used the above paints plus Americana cad red, bright yellow(to make the flesh color) and true blue for shading

Backgrounds

Backgrounds

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Linda Giese encourages comments, questions, and sharing your art journey at linda.giese@yahoo.com

She teaches classes privately and at a local scrapbook store, The Stamp Addict

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Filed Under: Mixed Media Art Techniques Tagged With: , ,
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