Book Review: Artful Adventures in Mixed Media

Writing a book is a lot like having a child. You carry it with you in your mind for months, even years for some. You work on making it perfect, wondering if the world will love it as MUCH as you do. You wonder what they'll say about you, your creativity and the value of what is in between the front and back cover of your baby. There are so many excited and nervous emotions, to name a few; that come with writing a book.

When my dear friend Nathalie sent me a copy of her book to review, I remember the feelings of trepidation, anxiety, excitement just opening the box. From the moment I saw her cover art I was impressed. Just looking at the cover of her gorgeous book is a reward with an explosion of color and texture. A quick glance through brings intrigue and the feeling that I just can't wait to find a few moments to read, digest and ingest every single thing inside and then get to work creating something from her easy to follow instructions.

Nat has not only shared her precious heart in this book, but her tried and true techniques for creating gorgeous and colorful mixed media art. From the ultimate beginner to the advanced "professional" there is something for everyone to learn. Her unique process of inspiration and exploration brought something alive in me and made me want to create something different, colorful and beautiful while maintaining my own sense of style.

I decided to mix and match a few things and create something inspired from her beautiful book, Artful Adventures in Mixed Media.

Below I have cited each part of the book that inspired me, so you can see how my process evolved after reading her book.

Chapter 5: Texture Collage. I am a total vintage book, music sheet and tissue paper junkie so it's no surprise that this spoke to me for the base of my painting. I did try tearing the papers, but decided that I prefer cutting them because I prefer a clean edge. Instead of moving right into an image transfer, I added some gesso and transparent color to tone down the background and unify the design. It was pretty hard to let it sit and dry over night.

I was really inspired by the art on page 66 and 67 -- and decided that the blues and greens and a little pink would be a nice color palette to stick with. Because I wanted the next step to be the most prominent, I created the entire base painting before the image transfer.

I am truly inspired by nature, if you know my art at all -- and her chapter about Enjoying Nature's Beauty really spoke to me -- maybe I should have tried a cityscape, but since I live in the country flowers and greenery really ignite my creativity. I decided to create a digital collage from a photograph I had taken. Once it was printed, I had a photocopy made and set to adding it to my painting using a traditional gel medium image transfer.

I kept going back to the art on pages 66 and 67 -- and added some sgraffito techniques as well as some stamping with brown ink in the background.

To finish my fun painting, I splattered paints here and there, added some green to the foreground and added my little Maya Angelou quote. I feels finished -- and it really inspires me to want to create more pieces of art inspired by this amazing book. I hope you love it and find as as much inspiration from it as I have.

Thanks for dropping by today, have a wonderful day.