How to create a mixed media painting

I attended the Artists of Northwest Arkansas monthly meeting in January,  and had the privilege of watching Karen Ahuja demonstrate her abstract mixed media process. She uses a wet on wet technique with fluid acrylics. I was really inspired by her paintings and couldn't wait to give her technique a try. 

I started out by wetting my canvas and applied Golden fluid acrylics onto the canvas, letting the colors mix and drip-it's very messy! I let the first layer dry, and then added another. This is what I ended up with.

Well, of course, I saw flowers here and loved the color scheme. I used a water soluble graphite pencil to sketch in a rough design.

Then I defaulted into my own techniques, and had to add some papers. I have some great vintage hymnal and responsive reading papers I found online that I'm loving using right now for my under layers of my paintings.

I used paint mixed with a soft gel gloss medium for the background so it would be semi transparent but thick. I wanted the papers to peek through, and also I love scratching designs and words into the paint.

Here I added a few more drips and the flower stems. Also started filling in the flower shapes with a heavy body paint mixed with soft gel to give a heavy impasto look to the flowers. I really like the look here, but as you will see I messed it up in the next step :/

I attempted to make the vase transparent, but that look wasn't working for me. I also added in a table here. My paintings never turn out how I invision them in my head, but I try to go with it and enjoy the process.

As you can see, I ended up painting the vase white and added some stencil shapes with gold paint mixed with a heavy matte medium.

Lastly, I gave it my usual distressed look by using a palette knife and some raw umber paint. 

So my painting looks nothing at all like Karen's style, and most of the underpainting is covered, but I still had so much fun experimenting a new technique, and loved the way it turned out. I'm will definitely give it a try again and do a few things differently the next time.

Look for this painting at the Junior Civic League The Big Party silent auction.

Hope

I've seen the hope instilled in a child through art. I've seen their faces light up, their confidence grow, a dream set in their heart in an instant. I've heard story after story from parents about the impact that art has made in the lives of their children.

First and foremost, I always teach that God is the greatest Creator, and we are all created in His image! That is the hope I'm really trying to instill when I teach art classes.There are so many lessons you can teach about God while you're teaching art; how special He made us, how beautiful is His creation that inspires all art, and how God gives us each a gift and a purpose. The students I teach in my little world are blessed; they come from great families; go to top rated schools; and will probably never know what it's like to wake up hungry. But they still need this hope too, and I'm so blessed to be able to share it with them in my private art classes. Here is my dream..... I ran across this video on The Art Project Girl's post. It brought me to tears, and got me sooo excited at the same time! It gave me hope; sparked a dream. Just wanted to share it with you.

I'm praying that someday God will use me to impact those "at risk" children with no hope at all. Praying He will open the doors and light that path. I think there are so many people in the arts that would love to use their talents to bless children in this way! 

I would love to hear how you bless others with your artistic abilities..

Inspiration for lessons-top 5

So how do I get inspiration for my art lessons?

Here's my top 5 sources (drum roll, please)....

1) Other art lesson blogs, art websites and craft blogs. Since I'm on 5's today, here's 5 of my favorites (of course, there are so many good ones it's hard to narrow it down, so also be sure and check out my regular reads in the left sidebar). I would love to add your link if it's not there! I also love looking at the lesson plans at Dick Blick.

*Deep Space Sparkle

*Art Projects for Kids

*Mary Making

*Incredible Art Department

*Teach Kids Art

2) Art lesson books. The library has tons of great books I've checked out for lesson inspirations. Occasionally, I run across one with fabulous pictures and projects and I just HAVE to own. Here's a pic of a lesson I adapted from one of my favorites, Dynamic Art Lessons for Children*.

3) Paintings I've tried and work of other artists. Once I figure out how to do something and it "clicks", I love explaining it to others. After painting still life pears, I knew I could simplify it enough to teach kids to paint them too. Also, when I run across fun art created by others, I always think about teaching children how to recreate it in a lesson. For example, I love Tricia Robinson's art and follow her blog Little Redhead. Her Dress Art inspired my Proverbs 31 lesson.

4) The Arkansas Young Arkansas Artists Exhibition I love taking my own kids to this each year and seeing all the amazing art created by children around our state. I always take notes and have gotten some great ideas for lessons.

5) Kids. They come up with great ideas of things they want to learn to draw, paint or create. One of my advanced classes begged me to paint pet portraits (result-dog painting above). My own kids have also come home with wonderful projects from school that I can elaborate on or adapt to a different medium.

I would love to hear from you about where you get your inspiration for your art lessons, or even your own art! Follow me in the upcoming months as I elaborate more on each one of these, and show you more new examples of art lessons I've tried!

*Advertisement disclaimer-I only use advertisements inside my posts and recommend products when it is something that I have actually used and found helpful with my lessons or in my own life/art. I do not do it solely for monetary gain, and all money earned from this site goes to support our sponsor children at Compassion International.