By now all my followers know how much I love Scrapbooking. What some of you may not know is that I have my BA in Fine Arts from Providence College, with a painting major. I am sharing this with you because I have discovered a new love - Mixed Media Art. It joyfully combines papercrafting with painting in a most wonderfully exciting way, and it has brought me full circle, back to my "roots".
So I was leaving a comment on one of my favorite blogs, Where Women Create and as a result, I won a spot in Christy Tomlinson's She Art Workshop. Christy has been featured in several magazines and has written a book about her mixed media artwork, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to take this course. You can see the first piece above, which I entitled, "She Saw Her Dreams Take Flight." The phrase was one that Christy had coined, and she kindly allowed her students to use. The piece is done on canvas primed with Gesso, and in this case, a piece of a vintage Simplicity dress pattern was applied as a background with Mod Podge...a very versatile glue that acts as a sealer & preservative as well. (I had used it ages ago for decoupage projects).
The background is then layered with textured paints, inks, patterned paper, and whatever else moves ones artistic fancy. The "girl" is cut out of old book paper (in this case I used a very dear paperback biography of Clarke Gable which was falling apart from age) and then "dressed" with patterned paper from my ample stash of scrapbooking supplies. After layers & layers of paint and ink and Mod Podge and paper cut-outs, the artwork is embellished with rub-ons and inked stamps (items which I normaly use for scrapbooking) and free-hand doodling.
The idea is to create lots & lots of interesting textures, while telling the story of the faceless "girl". Of course, the story is mine, and the girl reflects my desire to soar in this life with my artwork...to watch my dreams take flight (which I symbolized with the use of the empty birdcage & the image of the soaring bird).
This is my second mixed media artwork, created with my favorite scrapbooking techniques:
I love this girl! She represents the side of me that longs for never-ending summers, complete with bright sunshine, green lawns, blooming gardens and birds in trees. I used another Christy phrase: "She Felt the Sun Shine Down" to describe my love for the rays of the sun. (I'm sure all of you from New England can relate after this long harsh winter).
I wish this scan showed the lovely textures of this piece. The tree is crafted from a fine-grain corrugated cardboard, and the skirt is made by layering paper cut-outs in a way that mimics pleats. The addition of the watering can symbolizes the girl's responsibility to tend to her garden of life.
Who knew that I would discover an entirely new world by adding paint and a little creativity to my scrapbooking skills? I used paper punches, acrylic stamps, rubberstamps, and a plethora of scrapbooking supplies...all things that I used for papercrafting and scrapbooking, and learned to use them in a new and provocative way. Creating these mixed media pieces pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me to see possibilities in my art that I had not discovered before.
If you're interested in spreading your artistic wings, Christy will be starting a new workshop April 11th...and I believe she also has a journaling workshop that will begin soon. Check out this link for a sneak peak: She Art Workshop
Next week, I will share my two self-portraits that were inspired by this class.
Sharing the love, Enikö
