Mix it up!

Mixing media

When making 2D pictures, I find mixing various media creates a much more interesting artwork. This approach gives an artwork a range of textures, transparencies, and a wider range of colours. And when you think about it, most of the objects we draw, whether it be animals, people, machines, or landscapes, are all made up of numerous textures and surfaces; hairy, glassy, scaly, fuzzy, and shiny. Limiting your media selection to just one can hinder your ability to express or exaggerate these surfaces.

So in this week’s blog I am going to show you some step by step pictures I made, the first used just drawing/painting media – watercolours, acrylics, textas, and black fine tip marker. The second used just collage – newspaper, tissue paper, coloured paper, and black tape. 

The trick with the painting/drawing media mixing is to wait until each layer is dry before applying the next. You can speed up the drying process by laying artwork in the sun, or by blowing with a hairdryer. We have created a simple butterfly design – but the sky is the limit- faces, dragons, insects, castles, flowers, mushrooms………

Collage is a fantastic way for children to explore a range of media – check out how we layer up this rooster. We have started with the main body and head shapes using the newspaper, then created medium shapes to layer and bulk out the body, and then finer feather strips. A great way to use up a range of different types of paper that you might have stocked up in the art cupboard.

This Rooster includes some printmaking and black pen also.

I hope you agree the results are pretty delightful, and would not be possible without experimenting with those various media. Don’t stop with just these examples, experiment with whatever you have lying around! Cock-a-doodle-do!

Let us know what you think in the comments below………..

Happy Creating – until next week!

Tracy x