blog
Let's Get Your Creative Juices Flowing!!!
|
Today's SUPER FUN Mixed Media tutorial is a cute piece of art inspired by a book by Julie Nutting called Collage Couture Techniques for Creating Fashionable Art. I'm a HUGE fan of Julie's and have loved this book since it came out in 2011. In fact- I used to do a variation of some of her cute projects with my students when I used to teach art classes in person!  For today's project I've got a FREE download for you in case you'd love to SKIP OVER the DRAWING part and get straight into the mixed media goodness! Here are the supplies you need for today's project:
Once you have your body template cut out, trace her onto the back of a piece of scrapbooking paper. Quick tip here - choose a contrasting pattern for the body vs. clothes. For example- if you pick a tiny/subtle pattern for the body/skin - select a bolder pattern for the clothes (or try the reverse!).  Next we're gonna design some clothes! We need a mini pattern first, so lay a sheet of trace paper right over your cutout and let your imagination run wild! Today, I drew in a 3/4 sleeve shirt, skirt, and some cute boots for my girlie!!  Next, choose 2-3 sheets of scrapbook paper that go together to be her clothes. Lay one sheet of scrapbook paper face down on your art table. Then lay one sheet of transfer paper face down (dark side down) on top of your scrapbook paper. Finally, lay your trace paper with the clothes patterns you just created on top of that. Sound confusing? CLICK HERE to watch the video. I promise it's SO EASY! I used different sheets of scrapbooking paper for the top and the skirt for my girl. Look how cute she is looking already!!!  Since I'm working on a wood panel (and I LOVE the look of wood), I'm leaving the background somewhat naked for now. If I had chosen to work on canvas or a canvas board, I totally would've painted a background of some kind before gluing my girl down. GRAB YOUR MOD PODGE to glue your collage pieces to the board. I used matte medium and I actually wish I hadn't!! Mod Podge will make your collage pieces slippery and creates a beautiful surface to doodle on top of. So go for that look if you can!! Once your girlie is glued down, just HAVE FUN with her! I have a ton of cute punches and am a cat mama of 3 - so my cat punch came out to play for this piece, along with some flower punches in different sizes. I used a paint pen to add hair, and then stamped a quote to make me smile ;)  I continued doodling on the flowers and cat to carry over that look from the outlines on her clothes and tie it all together. Lastly, I added buttons to my large flower punches, and DONE! Isn't she SO CUTE?!!!  Once I had everything all glued down, I applied a huge layer of mod podge over the entire thing. That allowed me to doodle in a bit more dimension with my pitt pens because this is something I LOVE to do. You can leave bold pen strokes, smudge your strokes to add shading, or do a combo. It's what I do ALL the TIME with my hamburger style girls!!! I love the way it turns out...  I hope you ENJOY this super fun project!! Remember to DOWNLOAD your free, no-draw BODY TEMPLATE here. Then come back and press play for the full length, mixed media tutorial!! See ya next week ;)
0 Comments
I love a simple mixed media art project!! This one is quick and easy and trust me, ANYONE can do it (even YOU!). All you need are the following supplies:
 Also, if you have been wondering when to choose matte medium instead of mod podge for your mixed media art projects, THIS VIDEO is A MUST WATCH! So grab your supplies and meet me at your art table and press play! there's so much fun to be had! If you've been following my journey, you know I've been obsessed with teaching people how to draw!!! There's just something so magical about having an idea in your head and then making it come to life on your paper! It's also such a great distraction during these very difficult times. It's been hard having three kids home for so many months and I find myself wracked with a lot of emotions. I am worried about my children, growing up in an age of a Pandemic, wearing faces masks and not shaking hands or seeing their friends. I get anxious when I think about this as being the new "normal" when there's nothing but fear and worry when we leave the house. We left the house for the first time in four months this week, for just three nights. We went to a small cabin, close to our house, that was on a lake. My kids and I didn't leave the water all day I don't think!!! Just getting OUTDOORS for an extended period of time was heaven. Being out of the same four walls, also heaven.  I find that drawing, for me, offers me a similar feeling of peace. When I'm in the lake, I'm fully absorbed by the water, staying afloat, watching my kids to be sure they're safe, totally immersed in the beauty of nature. When I'm drawing I am so totally absorbed in my lines, in the gorgeous reference picture I may be using, in my drawing tools and if they're behaving and moving in the ways that my brain is envisioning. And in both instances I'm leaving all outside thoughts and anxieties behind to focus on the task at hand. I also did a drawing while we were at the lake! It's supposed to be of a video game characters my kids play although they informed me afterwards that it looks nothing like her. Nice. Thanks boys.  I also love drawing so much because it takes very little in the way of supplies! You can create so much using so few tools! Unlike mixed media (my other true love) which usually takes everything and the kitchen sink to make the same effect! lol! Oh well, I still love them both equally. I also love to come up with systems for things, to make art easier for people. I know a lot of my students just want to get to their happy place, and start creating, but that's really hard if you don't know how to do it!! In the past I've come up with a fun system for creating successful mixed media projects. I call it my "Hamburger" system. People LOVE IT!!! Well I also know how hard it is for people to draw PEOPLE and so I've come up with a cool, fun and easy method for drawing people as well!! Although in reality, you can use this exact system to draw really ANYTHING. It's a little bit tricky to explain but it's similar to the Grid Method. Although instead of drawing an exact grid on your reference and then using the same grid lines to draw the object on your own paper, you draw Quadrants instead. The beauty of this Quadrant Method is that there is no limit to how many Quadrants you can draw to help you out if you need more reference lines!! You can see in this photo how the Quadrants look on both the reference image (left) and my own drawing (right).  It's a little bit easier to explain in person that on paper (although in my new Art Deco book I take quite a lot of time and project and pages to explain it as best as I can!!) so I made a video that shows exactly what this entails. If you're skeptical if this system can work for you, don't take my word for it!! I've been teaching this to my students who are in the Fun Fab Drawing Club (at AwesomeArtSchool.com) and the results have been OUTSTANDING!!! Even beginner drawings have had HUGE success with this!! Here's just one example of many...  So if you're looking for a way to break down difficult subjects into easy ones, I highly suggest to give this a shot!! You can also check out my brand new book, Learn to Draw Art Deco Style Vol. 1 (available on Amazon's worldwide and soon-to-be in my Etsy Shop) where I teach you, step by step, this exact Quadrant method to draw amazing fashion figures of the 1920's and 30's. SOOOOOO fun!!!  I also included videos for many of the projects in the book as well!!! All of these are completely free and are on BOTH of my YouTube channels. Just follow the links inside and you can get another whole spin on each project!! One of my favorite projects in the book (and favorite videos to boot!) is making SMOLDERING eyes from the 1920's!! This era was a BIG DEAL to women because it marked the first time in history that women got to where make-up, OTHER than stage performers and streetwalkers that is!!! Also, these make-up techniques are SUPER fun to draw!! Want to see? Of course you do!!! You can watch (and hopefully draw) along with me right here!! Just press play and away we go! Subscribe to my YouTube channel while you're there so you never miss the new videos when they are posted weekly! Have a great week and I'll be popping back over to the blog soon for more fun news and videos for you!!
My super creative student and friend, Karina Aguirre, sent me this super cool background that she made from acrylic pouring. That's when you intentionally ooze a liquid acrylic mixture down over a flat surface and let it do it's magic!! It creates all these cool designs and textures over the surface, designs that would never be possible with a paintbrush or any other tool! She sent me two designs. Isn't this so cool??  I haven't had time to play or do anything spontaneous and fun for FOREVER so I was SO EXCITED that last week I finally found time to do just that. I found this adorable cat sketch on Pinterest and the rest is history!! I ended up making this super cute mixed media cat in just a few minutes!! The best part is that it only called for a hand-full of supplies: just Gesso, a Stabilo All pencil, some Mod Podge, Pitt Pens and then DONE! Click the play button to watch the whole kaboodle! My YouTube community has been LOVIN' all the fun and free series lately and I hope you are taking advantage of all this free, content rich, well, content!! In the winter it was the Mixed Media "Hamburger" Series which, in 9 episodes covered my ENTIRE Mixed Media process I use to create 99% of my mixed media projects! Have no idea WHAT I'm talking about in regards to Hamburgers and art?! You can get started by watching the first video in the series here! Then earlier this year I did a 4 part Art Journaling Series and that was soooo fun too!! While the Mixed Media series armed everyone with the technical art skills that enabled them successfully layers up on layers of supplies, the Art Journaling Series got people over their fear of starting, their fear of the blank page and on to the super-having-fun part!! I've seen soooooo many fun projects come to fruition as a result of that series, I cannot get over it! If you need a kick in the pants because you're too nervous to get started, that series is a must for you too! This week's free lesson is part 4 of 4 in a free comprehensive series that covers art journaling...well...everything under the sun having to do with art journaling! I'm covering a TON of art journaling tips with you today including a full art journal cover tutorial PLUS 7 easy ways to save (and how to fix) an art journal page using mixed media collage, gesso, and black gesso techniques and so so much more! To recap the other videos in the series: Video 1 is a full hour-long video addressing ALL of the fears you may be experiencing that may be holding you back and keeping you from diving into art journaling! I put together a 5 page pdf with helpful suggestions that goes with this episode as well as advice from myself and close (cardboard) friend, Bob Ross PLUS 5 easy ways to get you kick-started into art journaling! Video 2 was also a full-length tutorial that covered... So the background is done.... NOW WHAT?! I included my 10 BEST tips and tricks about choosing a color scheme and how to plan out successful composition in your art journals! I even made a free pdf for you that covers those points! Check out the second in the series right here now! Video 3 was then a full length tutorial using one of the backgrounds we created in Episode 1!!! We made a trio of ridiculously funny Emus and I show you the truth behind that art journal mixed media page; the doubts, the frustrations, and then how I was able to power through to complete it using the pdf I handed out in Episode 1 as well! To rewatch Episode 3 click to watch here! Video 4 is 7 Easy Ways to Save an Art Journal page you destroyed (or to fix on you hate!!) as well as my favorite way to cover an art journal!! Link to watch Episode 4 is below! And yes, I have a cheatsheet for you too! Look how cute my journal cover came out!! And it only takes a few minutes! Have any further questions on any of this? Leave me a comment below!
Each Friday I publish a free video on YouTube related to drawing, mixed media or art journaling. Well in today's video I am going the extra mile and bringing you a full blown, 1 hour, real time lesson on how to paint this ridiculously absurd trio of....EMU's!!!  I'm so proud to say that the page was painted with paints from my Signature Collection over at Jerry's Artarama. Even though I have 2 kits (one for Fairy Faces and one for Whimsical Animals), these Silly Emus were painted with paints from the Fairy Faces collection, lol!! That's the beauty of art I guess, at the end of the day, can you REALLY put paints into a single category?!  But back to the "emus"...I know what you're thinking..."What in the WHAT?!" In addition to laughing my head off while painting this (for obvious reasons, I mean, look at the guys little face!!!), I ALSO ALMOST did not pull this off!! I really didn't!! Do you know how much pressure there is to teach online? Knowing that thousands of people may be laughing hysterically and NOT with you? But AT YOU? I know we ALL struggle with feelings of not being good enough or talented or creative enough to finish our art pieces from time to time.  Today you can see me struggle as well. I hope by watching you'll know that you're not alone!!! I don't want to spoil too much of the ending but suffice it to say I do get some help... Thanks to the 5 page sheet of Bob Ross encouraging words, and my own Kick-in-the-Pants suggestions (and if you're lost, it'll make sense when you watch the video), I was able to - mid way through (minute 41 to be exact!) - get back on track and keep going until this ridiculously fun art journal page was created!! PHEW!! THANK GOD! lol! Don't believe that I almost can't finish this?? And that I'm totally mortified? I kept all of that on the video so you can see THAT I STRUGGLE TOO!!! And oh man, did I struggle. And laugh!!! But yeah, struggled.  Hope you get lots and lots of great takeaways from today's lesson, but mostly I hope you take away that we are all students, it's okay to laugh at your own struggles and that it's important to give yourself permission to mess up and HAVE FUN! Like I did!! Press Play below to get your weekly dose of inspiration and FUN!!! I'm giving you my best 10 tips on Color, Composition and art journaling techniques today!!! That's my little way of wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day today❤️ Chocolate isn't awesome for our waistline and flowers will wilt and die but Art Journaling and Mixed Media techniques?? Those are things that will never get old or die!! AND they'll make the time you spend at your art table or easel effortless and downright FUN! Happy Valentine's Day indeed my friend😘  The BEST part about what I'm teaching you today is that there is so much you can do without have ANY art experience whatsoever!! I think for a lot of people, color schemes are really challenging. Today I share with you super easy ways to figure out your color scheme...tricks that I hope help you with your art schemes for years to come!  I also share my tips on how to figure out your layout or composition!! It's so much easier than you'd think! Wishing you had a cheatsheet to keep track of all these tips and tricks? Well I got you there too! Just let me know in the comments section if you'd like one and I'll drop you the link to download it!  This week's video is a doozy!! I will also be sharing with you some SUPER EASY ways to make marks with tools that you can buy OR make yourself (and yes, I will show you that too!). Remember: Art journals are safe spaces. They are your visual diary! You don't have to share them ANYONE if you don't want to. This video will help you get past the backgrounds and onto some fun and simple things that you can do NEXT. Again, no skills required.  Art journals don't have to be filled with your best talents (although they certainly can!). But they can most definitely (and SHOULD BE) filled with images and text and colors that inspire and comfort you. Let me help make it super easy for you!! Nothing should get in the way of you making an incredibly special journal. Press the play button below and let's get started. I got you. Earlier this week, I polled my Facebook group to get some perspective on everyone's feelings about art journaling. Just as I suspected, there are many feeling SCARED because they have no idea how to start an art journal, they're intimidated by the talents of others and think they won't measure up, they're afraid of the blank page, and of wasting a beautiful new journal and/or art supplies! What???!!! First of all, you are NOT alone, but... it's time for a kick in the pants... Art is supposed to be FUN you guys!!!! Art journaling is like the DEFINITION OF FUN because there are absolutely NO rules. Better yet- it's private. Really! Think about it- it's a book with a cover. The word "journal" basically means diary. So that means an art journal is YOUR PRIVATE SPACE to experiment and play creatively however you want to. You don't have to show a soul. Isn't that freeing??? Lots of people choose to do art journaling for mental health or stress relief. It's also a great release if you need to distract yourself while healing physically. In today's video I'll share 4 ideas on kinds of journals you might like to try- ranging from my current fave (a strathmore 11"x 14" watercolor journal), to how to art journal from an old book, and how to make an art journal from scratch. We'll also go over art supplies for beginners (all you REALLY need is a pencil!). Then I'll teach you 5 quick and easy ways to start an art journal page with various techniques to create interesting art journal backgrounds. I often use duct tape or masking tape to add texture. I also love collage and will share a fun acrylic painting idea for all the perfectionists out there!  Definitely, by far though, is spray painting through stencils...say wha??? You heard me! And in today's video you can watch me too!  I've got not one, but THREE special guests today who are waiting for you, so go ahead and CLICK HERE to start the video because we have A LOT to cover as we start our Art Journal Challenge together!
This week I also have a FREE 4-page guide full of art journal ideas, inspiration & encouragement to help you BREAK THAT BLANK PAGE & start having fun, fast!! 👇 Scroll to the bottom and tell me in the comments if you want a copy so I can send ya the link!! Come art journal with me! |
Karen CampbellMonFounder of Awesome Art School. Mixed Media Artist. Author of 9 Instructional Art Books!    
  Archives
August 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
