March 2023 Week 1 - Mixed Media

Welcome to the March Art Journaling Muse. I am Susie and I am your host for this week.

We are going to go back to the basics for just a bit and talk about the “art” in art journaling. As you probably have seen, trying to define “art journaling” is like trying to tell someone who can’t see colors what “purple” looks like! Most people have their own idea of what true “art journaling” is, but there ARE some specifics we can focus on to make sure that we know what we are doing.

Isn’t there a design rule that says that you have to know the rules before you can break them? Well, in art journaling, we ARE breaking a lot of design rules. It’s not so important to have the “rule of thirds” or worry about contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Sometimes even color palettes go out the window with art journaling!

This week, I will be addressing “Mixed Media”. Very simply put, mixed media is the use of different kinds of art supplies like paints, inks, chalks, fabrics, paper, glitter, tapes, and even rhinestones to create one of a kind art piece. It’s not so much about HOW you create it and what the end result is - mixed media is more about what tools and items you use to create your page.

Here are some of the mixed media tools. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, and these are items if you are doing “in real life” art. To translate it to digital, you have to think of the EFFECTS these tools make.

Here are some:
Acrylic Paints, Watercolor paints, gouache paints (thicker than watercolor, thinner than acrylic) Watercolor Crayons, Paint pens, pencils, stencils, stamps, archival ink, gesso, and tacky glue or some kind of adhesive if you are collaging.

The term mixed media is often times used as an umbrella to cover all the different types of art you create with it. Here are some types of Mixed Media Art pieces one can make:

Collages, (usually paper items, but could also use other items like ribbon) junk journals (using things on hand to make pages), vision journals (choosing items to express your vision for your future like things cut out of magazines, etc…), altered art (think to recycle some found object to make a different object), assemblage art (where the artist uses scavenged items to create their art), and sculpture (if one is designing with more than one medium - clay, metal, plastic, mesh, etc…)

Lisa, Cindy, and Ona will be diving into 3 types of mixed media art in the next month. For now, let’s just practice the use of the tools of mixed media to make a page.

This is our theme for the month: We DARE you to EMBRACE play!!

WE DARE YOU to develop your talent.
WE DARE YOU to create something new.
WE DARE YOU to evolve your art
WE DARE YOU to challenge yourself.

WE DARE YOU TO EMBRACE Change
WE DARE YOU TO EMBRACE New ways of thinking
WE DARE YOU TO EMBRACE Your fear of trying something new
WE DARE YOU TO EMBRACE The uncertainty

Here are some mixed-media examples that I pulled from Pinterest:

This first one inspired me to do my page. See how it's a mixture of different mediums? It uses text, color, paint, gesso, blending, painting, and sketching. Artwork by Sharyle Doherty


Here is an example of altered art. Notice it is in the mixed media style, but the artist uses metals and has been painted on canvas. Honestly - I could not tell if this is digital or physical! (It is physical. I had to know!)


This is by an artist named finnabair and it's called "once upon a time"

"It is a mixture of everything: Prima paper flowers and embellishments (including my Mechanicals and Ingvild's Junkyard Findings), trinkets, fake jewelry, electronic and electrical elements, can openers, pebbles, trinkets, computer parts, found objects such as light bulbs, gears and other clock elements.

Colours: Luminarte Primary Elements Pigments and Silks Acrylic Glaze."

This one is from Ally Jade Art, and this is mixed-media illustration printed on paper with the Giclee technique. (Very high quality printing) It was created as a layered collage with white posca pen writing.


I'm kind of inspired by faces lately...can you tell?

Here is my page. I took elements of all 3 of the example pages and made my page with all digital items.


I also took a free art journalling course from Laly Mille (one of my favorite mixed media artists) this week and the style just "Happened" to be mixed media - so here is a paper/in real life example from me. I am a complete beginner, so be kind to me - LOL !!!



I used many of the mixed media tools: collage, paint pens, distressed watercolor crayons, gesso, modge podge, pencils, acrylic ink, Copic alcohol markers, in a notebook that I made myself with watercolor paper.

Challenge for Week 1

• This week I want you to create a layout in the mixed media style of Art Journaling.
• You can create any type of page ie. clean and simple, artsy, pocket style etc, but you must use the tools of mixed media. Remember: Mixed media is the use of different kinds of art supplies like paints, inks, chalks, fabrics, paper, glitter, tapes, and even rhinestones to create one of a kind art piece. This includes hybrid and full-on paper scrapping as well. Just remember to use some TLP products in your page.
• Remember this is for everyone, so have FUN and go where your inspiration takes you!
• Please post your layout to the Art Journaling Gallery HERE prior to Midnight EST April 2, 2023 and then post it in this thread by copying the code (at the right of your gallery image) from the box under "Share BB Code".

We will draw a winner at the beginning of next month for a coupon!! Every layout you create is equal to one entry in the random draw. So if you create 1 layout you are entered once, if you create 4 layouts you are entered 4 times.

You can use any products in the Lilypad store or retired products from current Lilypad designers, (just make sure you follow our gallery guidelines).

 

I feel like mine stayed in the awkward teenaged stage! I did another one yesterday that I like a LOT better!!!

 

I love this, Lisa!!!!!!! So wonderful!!

 

Thank you so much! I'm on page 3 now! I'm on a roll! LOL

 

I have commented on all of your pages up to here in the gallery. I'm so amazed at how you have all DARE-ing to EMBRACE our challenge! So many pages and so many different interpretations of this challenge!