Mixed Media Artist

1. Cut two pieces of craft foam into identical sized squares. Using an exacto knife, cut geometric shapes out of the middle of one piece, leaving at least a thin border all the way around the outside. Mount one on top of the other using spray adhesive. 2. Paint a background piece of cardstock or watercolor paper with thinned acrylics. Let it dry thoroughly. 3. Use a brayer to roll out either black acrylic paint or ink on a piece of waxed paper. Use your craft grid like a stamp, making as many impressions as you can on your painted paper. Let it dry. 4. Cut out a grid that you like, and mount it on black cardstock or matt board. Finish it off with a quote or images of your choice. Copyright 2007 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact. Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered boo...

This is what happens when you try to use texture plates as a stamp! Not much!! Another use of texture plates is to use them as a reverse stamp. They don’t make good stamps in the classic sense, because the ridges are not all the same height. Therefore, when you try to apply ink to them, you end up with little dots on your paper instead of the pattern. However, if you place the texture plate underneath thin paper and press the inkpad down onto the paper from the top, you’ll get a much better texture impression. Use slow-drying ink, add embossing powder, heat, and you’ll have an even more noticeable texture. You can use your texture plates to texture thin metal. Tape the piece to the plate and rub the metal either with your finger or with a spoon. Using a piece of waxed paper over top of the metal will make your finger or spoon glide more easily, but can leave a residue on the metal that you’ll need to remove afterwards. When you’re done, you can use a stylus or an old dried up ballpoint...

I bought a set of texture plates recently, and then sat there trying to figure out why I had wanted them! In typical fashion, I got interested in the tool before I had thought through the results. But with a little experimenting, I found out that there are a whole host of things you can use these for…besides using them for interesting water glass coasters! The old classic is to place a thin paper overtop of the texture and rub with crayons, pastels, chalks, or colored pencils. This is one of the easiest ways to add texture to your work, building up layers of rubbings and then overstamping or painting. Crayons will act as a resist, so you can add water media on top and still see the pattern you’ve made. If you use a crayon that matches the color of the paper, or a clear wax stick (even a candle), the paper will show through. To texture a small shape, you can either go ahead and texture a larger piece of paper and then cut out your shape, or you can cut it out first and use a small piece...

A gradient fill can be used on just part of a photo (to beef up a wimpy sky, for example) or on the entire image. It can be used to correct or change lighting, and can also add a great stylized look to the colors. Changing the colors is not a technique that I’d recommend using on every shot just because it looks cool, however. It’s like every other trick with Photoshop that can become very boring very fast. I like to play around with it only when I’ve got a shot with great lines but not much else! 1. Open your image file, size it, and save it under a new name. Make copy of background layer. 2. Up the contrast and desaturate slightly if needed. You want a high-contrast, dull colored image to work with. 3. Using an adjustment layer, add the gradient fill of your choice in an orientation that suits the light of your image. Choose the color blending mode and adjust the opacity to suit. 4. Merge all visible layers into a new layer, and use this layer to add any filter effects you desire...

In this tutorial today, I’m going to show you how to use tissue paper as a tool rather than as an actual art material. Using plain white tissue paper as a guide, you can create really fun found poetry pieces in your altered books and collages. 1. Gather together a picture that you would like to use, a sheet of text, a sheet of tissue paper, a pencil, and an exacto knife. 2. Find some words on the sheet of text that make an interesting found-word poem, or somehow relate to your picture. Lay the sheet of tissue paper over the text and draw a box around the words with your pencil. 3. Now lay the tissue paper over the image, and move it around until the word boxes are in a good location. Using your exacto knife, carefully cut through both the tissue paper and the image below. 4. Carefully line up the text sheet behind the image so that the words show through the cut holes, and use acrylic medium to glue them together. Trim them even with each other if needed. Copyright 2007 Cyndi Lavin. N...

White tissue paper can be a really helpful material when you want the paper surrounding a stamped item to almost disappear into the background. By stamping onto white tissue, you can make it look like the image (or text) was stamped directly on the substrate. Why not just stamp it that way to begin with? Well, sometimes your background is too textured to take a stamp impression well. Experiment with these…I’m sure you’ll come up with lots more uses for them! 1. Prepare your background paper with as many layers as you want. Set it aside to dry, and stamp your desired image onto white tissue paper while you wait. Tear each piece out to use separately, or use the entire sheet, whichever you prefer. I tore each star out. 2. Apply a light layer of acrylic medium, the liquid kind, in either matte or gloss, your choice. Smooth down each stamped image, letting the medium soak through it. You can also apply another layer of medium over top of everything when you’re finished if you want to seal ...

Today we’re going to look at the mixed media techniques used to create the digital collage, Stone Lily. This digital collage was made with steps very similar to a technique that I shared before . Previously, though, most of my work was done using either the overlay or the hardlight blending mode of Photoshop . Each digital collage presents its own unique set of challenges, and this time I found that using the multiply mode and adding an embossed layer was just what was needed. As I explained before, you’ll have to just take these steps and tweak them for each new piece that you work with. 1. Create background paper, using one of the crinkled tissue techniques . Scan the finished paper at 300 dpi. 2. Open your collage image and make sure that it is also 300 dpi. Choose a color from this image with the color picker tool, and use it to colorize the background paper. 3. Drag and drop your image on top of the background paper. Change the blending mode to multiply, and tweak the colors and l...

Welcome to part 3 of our Technique Tuesday series, what the heck to do with tissue paper! There is lots of tissue paper available that is not just plain white! That may be a shock after the last two weeks, where all we looked at and worked with was white tissue, no patterns, no pictures, no nothin’. This week, I want to share a technique with you that is perfect for working with patterned and pictorial tissue, including napkins. If you decide to use napkins, make sure that you have split them down to just a single layer…some of the fancier napkins actually have 3 layers, and it’s easy to miss one. 1. Assemble the materials you’ll need, including a piece of cardstock or watercolor paper to use as your base, patterned tissue paper and/or napkins, liquid acrylic medium, a foam brush, lots of waxed paper, parchment paper, and an iron. I used the piece of black and gold tissue to completely cover my substrate, first spreading a thin layer of acrylic medium and smoothing the tissue over it....

Today we’re going to be looking at how you can use tissue paper to create a paper with inclusions. Your piece will end up looking similar to the handmade papers you can buy with flower parts, bits of text, etc embedded within them. 1. You’re going to need to gather together the items you wish to embed, a sheet of paper to use as a substrate, and some white (or pale colored tissue). Stick down all of your inclusions using liquid acrylic medium. 2. Gently gently gently, apply liquid medium all over your page, including on top of your inclusions. If they are just too delicate for this treatment, you can use spray adhesive instead. But oh, how I hate that stuff! I can never use it without creating a total mess! Anyway, once you’ve got a layer of adhesive down, carefully lay a piece of tissue on top. I like to smooth out most of the wrinkles for this technique, but making it wrinkley like we did last week would give you a whole new set of options. 3. Add any paints that you desire. I prefer...

Here is a tissue paper method that works when you want the tissue paper painted in a crinkled style, but not attached to a substrate. Maybe you don’t want the tissue paper as a background, but want to use a thin layer elsewhere in one of your collages. Use freezer paper or waxed paper underneath this piece so that you’ll be able to release it when it dries: 1. Thoroughly crumple the tissue paper. Smooth it out slightly and pour or spray very thinned acrylics (or thin inks, dyes, or other paints) all over the tissue. Let it dry undisturbed. Peel it up carefully and use it as one of your collage layers. 2. I scanned this piece of tissue after it dried and used it in this digital collage called The Boater . Copyright 2007 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact. Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , ...

There are so many ways that tissue paper can be incorporated into mixed media work that I decided to do a short series on it! Just like with the last series on image transfers , I really hope that you’ll send me pictures to share with everyone of the work you’ve done that incorporates these techniques. And please use the comments section below to share your own tips! We’re going to look at two really simple textured tissue paper backgrounds today. I’m using white tissue, but remember that you can always multiply your options by using colored and patterned tissue as well. 1. Gather your materials. You’ll need liquid acrylic medium (also called polymer medium) in either gloss or matte, your choice. You’ll also need stock paper or watercolor paper, tissue paper, a foam brush and a sponge, and acrylic paints of your choice. 2. Apply a thin coat of medium to the substrate paper. Place a larger piece of tissue on top, and allow it to wrinkle as you adhere it to the medium. You can pretend t...

Painted Frame Gather your leftover pieces of fabric trims and bric-a-brac. And don’t forget the ric-rac. Don’t have any? Check the bargin bins at your local fabric or craft store. Don’t buy anything too expensive. I bought this one pricey little piece of trim that had glass pearls sewn to it. Guess which was the only piece of trim that I couldn’t get to work properly? :) 1. I used heavy-weight pellon as the base for my frame, and a sheet of felt to add height to certain areas. Other than that, I just gathered up all the trims and ribbons I had sitting around, paying no attention to their color. 2. Cut out a frame with the appropriate sized opening. Using fabric glue, tack down all of your trims and ribbons. I placed small pieces of felt, sometimes multiple layers, under some areas to raise them. 3. Soak the entire piece with watered down matte acrylic medium . While the piece is still wet, paint with acrylic paints mixed with glazing medium , allowing the colors to run tog...

Today I’m wrapping up the series of tutorials that I’ve been sharing on my favorite image transfer methods. This last one, using clear acrylic caulk as the transfer medium, is a really wonderful and very permanent method, but it’s also more time consuming and a bit more physical. You really need to use a strong and heavy base to receive the image, and I especially recommend a canvas board or masonite. 1. Toner copies work best, so I recommend xeroxing your image. Like the paper transfers that we did, caulk transfers reverse the image, so keep that in mind as you prepare your picture. Paint the surface of your canvas and apply any other collaged images desired before doing the transfer. Leave a good deal of extra paper around your image so that it will be much larger than the caulked area. You need to avoid getting any of the caulk on the back side of the paper when you go to do the transfer. 2. Apply a thin but thorough coat of caulk to the canvas in the spot where the transfer is to b...

Contact paper transfers, aka packing tape transfers, are a very handy method to have in your repertoire. They are very easy to do and use cheap materials. As if that weren’t enough, this is the one method that does not reverse your image!! Toner copies from a copy machine or text and images from magazines work the best. Inkjet prints will be very faint, so you’ll want to print out your text in bold face. Experiment and see what you like best, but my experience leads me to take my inkjet printouts to a copy machine before using them! 1. Place clear contact paper or a strip of clear packing tape over your text/image. Smooth it out and burnish it well. Cut it out to whatever final shape you will desire. 2. Soak the tape in warm water, and rub the back gently but thoroughly. The paper backing will rub off, leaving the pigment behind on the tape. You will probably have to rub and re-rub several times to get all the paper fibers. I've been told that baby wipes perform miracles in remov...

As we saw in the last post about t-shirt transfers to fabric , the transparency transfer method yields a more delicately colored and transparent image. Here's how to do it: 1. Print out your image on the rough side of an inkjet transparency . Prepare the receiving cloth, ironing it flat if needed. 2. Apply a thin but thorough layer of polymer gloss medium to the fabric. Position the image and burnish it well. The fabric will probably be slippery, so hold your image down carefully. 3. Remove the transparency carefully, and top the image with matte medium to cut the shine if desired. This post contains affiliate links Copyright 2007 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.