Mixed Media Fun!

Yeah! – at last, I got to play mixed media!! I had so much fun!

I finally got the courage this year and signed up for 21 Secrets 2013. As I have never really done any proper art journalling, I treated myself to a smart Strathmore Mixed Media Journal – it was a dream to use, and just the right size!

This is my play page, which I’ve titled ‘The Gift’, inspired by the class from Carissa Paige. I played with acrylic paint, ink sprays, stencils, foam stamps, staz-on ink pads, collage, and graphite pencils. I found the girl in green holding ‘The Gift’ lurking in the painty mix. Thank you Carissa for the gift of freedom you inspired with your class. I know I had fun – I’m still picking the paint and gel medium off my fingers!!

I made an interesting discovery when I tried to scan the finished picture – my scanner does not ‘see’ luminous acrylic paint, and as I used rather a lot, it left the colours looking a bit flat! So I spent ages trying to get a good photo which didn’t have too much reflection! Has anyone else discovered this problem?

Last but not least – I received my ninth postcard this morning all the way from Australia – a wonderful hand drawn mandala from Lulu – beautiful! Thank you so much. Only one more postcard to go – then it’s all over for this year – it’s been so much fun! I’ll have to hunt around for another swap to take part in. Anyone got any ideas?

Now I’m off to play mixed media in the next part of Carissa’s class!

More Winter Flowers!

It must be the effect of all the dull winter days at the moment, I just keep wanting to play with flower images, so here are some more winter flowers!

I started off by stencilling the big flowers onto the watercolour paper using acrylic paint – messy, but fun! Then I added some more flowers using clear stamps and a mixture of Staz-on ink pads and distress ink pads. Lastly I scanned the image into the computer, added some more greenery with digital brushes and some more background colour using gradients and blending.