Mixed media art allows both novice and professional artists to have fun with their craft because there really are no rules. It involves using just about anything you want to create a finished piece, including paint, sand, salt, charcoal, and other things found around the home. You can be messy for the sake of your art. Mixed media, in visual art, refers to a work of art in which more than one medium has been used to make it.
Landscapes plus seascapes were good subjects for mixed media projects because the texture and 3D look that many media put into your project could bring the landscape to life. You can find a landscape photo in a magazine and crop it out, or find one on the web and print it out. It should be colorful and also contain three-dimensional things like trees, flowers, and buildings. Attach the image on watercolor paper and use watercolor paints or pencils, as well as items such as fabric and bark, to continue the image outward. Get colors in the original image for a better match. Another technique for younger artists is always to cut landscape elements like trees, water, and animals from construction paper and glue them onto a larger piece of paper, then add details using watercolors or oil paints.
Handmade greeting cards lend themselves well to a mixed media technique, since you can tailor the media to the theme of the greeting card. Start with a simple collage technique by cutting or tearing construction paper and gluing the pieces onto cardstock. For example, you can use red and green paper for Christmas and orange and black for Halloween. Form overlapping layers for a more tactile effect. Create textures according to the event. For example, place small pieces of pine branches for Christmas or tissue paper to represent ghosts for Halloween. If the recipient is a sports fan, create a background in his team’s hues and create a collage of cut-out sports cards of his favorite players. This process can also be useful for party invitations.
Mixed media refers to anything that can be put on a board, canvas, or any other support and that can be combined with paints or other media. Why would you use mixed media? To begin with, it is one of the best methods to enter and teach you the world of art. However, using it is not, as many may assume, an easy way to make art. Anyone can put multiple items together, but often the results will look ugly.
There are many advantages to using mixed media. First of all, it is cheap. Newspapers, fabric, and household glue can form the base of a mixed media project. Second, and most importantly, using various materials from the world around you sensitizes you to things you wouldn’t normally see. Who would have thought that a piece of the local newspaper, a piece of wood, and a bit of paint had the ability to produce a nice piece of art? This is also a great way to educate yourself in the world of shape, form, and also color. By combining different shapes and colors from the world around you, you can train your eye very quickly.