Art Exercises

How about some creative exercises?

Today we have some really great ideas by Agnieszka of how to practise your art muscle! ;)

Hi, everone,

today I'd like to show you some of my new art journal spreads.

I've decided to work with colors and composition as one can never have enough exercise, right? :)

I started with priming pages in an old book with gesso. I applied gesso with Catalyst Wedge No6 which is a very useful palette knife. Catalyst tools are made of flexible silicone and perfectly fit in a hand. They are also great to use with acrylic paints.

Next, I glued different sorts of materials on my pages - cardboard, scrapbooking papers, paper tape, etc. I decided to arrange them in simple geometrical shapes which is a very easy composition exercise.

Then, I applied colors. You can obviously use paintbrushes or palette knives but also your own fingers. The more tools you'll use, the more interesting the effect.

Acrylic paints are just perfect - they dry quickly and if you're not satisfied with the result, you can always paint a new layer on top of it.

You can use gel medium to mix with acrylic paints to achieve a transluscent effect so that the paper underneath remains visible.

I often do such creative exercises and I strongly recommend them for you - they give a lot of joy and really improve your eye and hand.

Supplies from Mixed Media Place:

p.s. We have some great news for you!!! Finnabair's new mixed media lines are finally on our shelves! You can learn more about  Art Basics, Art Ingredients and Art ExtraVagance products on Finnabair's blog and find them in our store!

p.s. We also hope you haven't missed our Izinks discount week! Read more about these incredible inks in Tusia's post and buy your favorite colors with a 10% discount - it's just enough to enter this code: GzK5mmP7  at the checkout.

Luna

Take a break. Take a moment. Immerse yourself in this beautiful world of poetry created by Agnieszka Anna.

Hello. Today, I'd like to present a dress that was inspired by poetry of a Polish poet, Rafał Wojaczek.

Technically, this piece was very easy to make.

My base for the dress is a paper mache shape formed on a Barbie doll. I used pieces of a newspaper soaked in glue to create the skirt.

After the glue dried, I used gesso applied with a soft brush to fix the whole dress. When it dried and the dress was hard, I painted it with acrylic paints. Finally, I added some frills and some glimmer with this mist.

For the background, I applied a thick layer of gesso on a piece of cardboard and stamped this circle shape into the gesso.

When dry, I painted the background with the same paints I used for the dress.

The little houses I placed on my dress I created out of thick cardboard. I glued pieces of newspaper onto them, then added some touches of white acrylic paint and distressed them with distress inks.

Finally, I glued the dress onto the background with the magic glue.

I hope you like my dress. Creating it was really that complicated, maybe you will give it a try and create your own?

Supplies from Mixed Media Place:

Bend It Like Beckham :)

Agnieszka Anna is known and loved for her altered art.

Do you remember her magical spoon?

Or this amazing table tennis paddle?

Today, she comes with another extraordinary altered creation...

[today's title for the post was borrowed from this great movie. :) ]

For a couple of years I've been asked to create a trophy for an amateur women's tournament in soccer.

I'm very lucky to be given total creative freedom when it comes to the shape and the whole look of this prize.

This year, I've decided that it will be a woman's head covered with bits of a football.

To create this special trophy I used a plastic head that is used on shop displays.

I glued bits of newspapers and primed them with gel medium mixed with white acrylic paint.

The most difficult part was to glue the patches from a football on such an uneven surface.

But thanks to extra heavy gel medium they hold very well.

When everything dried, I painted another layer of gel medium to prepare good priming for acrylic paints.

My next step was painting with metallic acrylic paints also mixed with gel medium to make them translucent and to leave the newspapers visible beneath.

To make the whole thing more shiny and glamorous, I added the final touch of some watered down Inka Gold metallic rub.

Materials from Mixed Media Place:

Open Up!

This could start like a fairy tale:
"One fine day, a little boy found a mysterious padlock in his backyard..."
Are you curious what happened next? :)
Take a look!

Today I'd like to show you another small mixed media canvas.

This time I decided to turn my canvas the other way round and use the back side.

First, as always, using gel medium, I glued all sorts of materials on the canvas - band-aids, looosely woven canvas so as to make my background more structural.

The new thing I used for building my background, was dry paint from my palette. Sometimes when I paint, I squeeze too much paint out of the tube and it dries on my palette. It was quite easy to pull off the dry patch and I thought to use it in my work to add some interesting texture.
I glued it also using gel medium.

When everything dried, I made a composition using fabulous Mechanicals from Finnabair, wood embellishments, buttons, paper flowers, beads and an old padlock found in the backyard by my son. :)

I painted the embellishments with acrylic paints mixed with gel medium, but for the padlock I used Inka Gold.

Inka Gold is perfect for metal - it's fast drying and super easy and quick to apply metallic rub to add some color.

Finally, I stamped my background with a 3rd Eye stamp and I splashed my canvas with watered down gold acrylic paint.

Materials from Mixed Media Place: