Beginners Mixed Media: Textured Paint

To some of us, there is nothing more nerve-wracking than attempting a scrapping style out of your comfort zone or more daunting than a blank canvas with infinite possibilities.
(OK, yes, I’m talking about me personally but I’m sure this applies to others as well!)
So in this blog series, I’m attempting to make Mixed Media less daunting by giving you (and me) some jumping off points. Where to begin with digi – mixed media scrapping? Right here for Mixed Media Beginners!

Recap & Introduction

As a template scrapper and mixed media beginner, since embarking on this series, I’ve used basic linear paint brush strokes and ‘designer painted’ papers to give easy and instant mixed media vibes to my layouts. Most recently, I used stamps as the main elements on a page.

This month, I’m experimenting with texturised paint similar to gesso, called Impasto. In the real world, impasto is a bit like a thicker gesso, which is a white primer medium often used before other paint mediums to give the paper extra strength, reducing warping and also allows paint to mix and run as the artist desires to give them more time to achieve the right look. Impasto is predominantly white, a bit grittier and great at holding shape when used with stencils. Also because of it’s neutral colour and thick nature, it can soften bold colours and patterns which is how I’m using it today.

So jumping in…

First up, you know I’ve grabbed a template because that’s my ‘go-to’. I’m using Scrapping with Liz’s Dad templates and playing along with the June Random Challenge, scrapping a milestone to get another of the backlog of birthday’s scrapped. The Impasto pack I’ve grabbed is Rachel Jefferies : Epic, Cosmic Stuff Impasto and my traditional digi supplies are the birthday themed A Date to Celebrate by Bella Gypsy and Happy Birthday Journal Cards by Paislee Press.

So here’s my work in progress. To start with I dropped 2 photos in the Daddy template in Photoshop and kept the rotation angle but made them rectangles instead cropping them to be squares, and I also clipped one of the Paislee Press Journal Cards into the top photo spot to make the title fit the milestone theme.

The template does not include any paint so to make it mixed media-ish, I started out with the idea of using the ‘peek-a-boo paint’ technique, just placing the impasto PNG files such that they peek out around the edges of the photos and big cut-out title. And then, as I’m finding is the norm while thinking more about creating with mixed media, I kept going and let it take over the page design! Confetti is almost a staple for me in terms of birthday pages too so it was one of the first layers I added.

This image is a bit more zoomed in to show the texture in that impasto paint and how it is swirled and clumped and lets parts of the background paper show through but also breaks it up and gives the page some movement but also places for the eyes to rest. (The Ombre Shimmers papers from the Bella Gypsy Collection in the cut-out title also look very cool and sparkly up close too! And I’ve obviously switched the background to a patterned paper and added some elements)

And here’s my finished product. You can see I added a bit more blingy glitter and sequins as well as extra texture in the form of bunched thread and another mixed media element, a doodled frame, all from Val Wibben’s Sprinkles vol 22 as the icing to top off my white texture painted birthday cake page.