PanPastels 101

PanPastels... Do you have them on your desk yet?

If yes, we know you love them, don't you? ;) Then feel welcome to look around among all the beautiful inspirations presented today by our lovely Tusia!
If not... watch out! Once you try, you may fall in love with a new supply. ;) And Tusia is here today to explain how they work and how endless the creative possibilities are!

Today I would like to share with you some information about PanPastels. Below you can find my video about creating backgrounds with PanPastel.
For those of you who are not familiar with PanPastels - they are dry pastels which are blendable (this is a huge difference comparing to other dry pastels). The colors are extremely rich.
PanPastels come in flat, clear pans with a lid - you can stack them up or use special trays and you always see their colors.

PanPastels comes in basic colors, tints, shades and metallic. In Mixed Media Place store you will find a wide range of tools dedicated to PanPastels - once you use wonderful PanPastel Sofft Art Sponges, you will never use anything else to apply PanPastels.

Enough talking :) Now it's a time for the video. :)

Here is an example of layering PanPastel colors:

I have used 4 different colors with Sofft Art Sponge and different stencils.

Finished layout:

The colors blends wonderfully - see below on the tag (the background was also created with PanPastels).

Colors can be vivid or very delicate:

You can customize chipboard or paper - like I did on the card you see below. I have covered with PanPastels all the chipboard pieces and papers (from Cold Country collection).

Below I have covered the blank white primed canvas with a PanPastel - 430.8 Magenta Tint. I have used a PanPastel dedicated sponge which is very soft and perfect for using with PanPastels.

Then I took Heavy Gel Medium Gloss, Tim Holtz Tissue Paper and Crystal Mortar paste.

I tore some tissue paper pieces and glued it down using Gel Medium. Then, I covered some areas using Crystal Mortar paste. 

Finished canvas:

You can use PanPastels not only directly on paper - you can also use white or clear gesso as primer. PanPastels work great with Gel Medium. 

The honeycomb was created using Heavy Gel Medium, and the circles using white gesso (before applying PanPastels):

Finished art journal page:

PanPastels are a mess free way of adding some color, shading, creating backgrounds or even painting. You can find many tutorials on youtube.
I hope I encouraged you a little bit to give PanPastels a try! :)

Have a great day!

Tusia Lech

Are you feeling inspired?

Do your fingers itch to play with all these delicious colors? :)

If so, we come with a little treat for you...

Beginning today (June 11th) we are having a Pan Pastels Week in our Mixed Media Place store!!!

It means that 'till June 18th we offer a 10% discount on all Pan Pastels and all the accessories!

Are you smiling yet? :)

The only thing for you to do is to choose the colors you love and enter this code at the checkout:

%PanPmmP%

Happy creating, everyone!

The Scent of an Old Book

“Old books exert a strange fascination for me -- their smell, their feel, their history; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived, what they felt."

(Lauren Willig)

As you may know, I have a lot of art journals.

Some of them are bought, some made by myself, some are big, others are very tiny.

But there is one kind of journal I still like ("love" may be even a better word) the most - old books.

Altering them and creating inside, on these old thin pages, is just wonderful.

What I want to show you today is another of my art journals made from an old book that one of my friends gave me.

Its cover was originally green and this color totally inspired me. I decided to add some dark red Glimmer Glaze paint and then added some touches of metallic acrylic paint in copper color. But at the end of my work, I decided it needed some gold, too.

To create the background I used pieces of papers from 7DotsStudio Nature Walk collection, as well as some scraps of Illumination papers.

Hope you like my old book and maybe you'll feel a little bit inspired to make one yourself?

If yes, please do not hesitate! You will love it, I can promise you that.

Supplies from Mixed Media Place:

Freedom To Be Who You Are

We are truly blessed to have a Design Team that not only consists of amazing artists but also ten really great people!
These ladies are the friendliest bunch and it's a huge pleasure to be creating our mixed media paradise in their company and to be part of their art adventures!

Hello. I’m presenting a journal page today. This page is reflective of how I felt after having been offered my position on the design team here at Mixed Media Place...

Of course I was very happy, excited and thankful, but as well as that I felt freedom to be able to create how I wanted, in my own way, in my own style and be confident in doing that without doubting myself.

Acceptance offers freedom. Whether it is acceptance of race, religion, gender, age or sexuality. Whether it is to be accepted just by your peers or by the whole of society; acceptance is truly liberating.

The background paper used is Finnabair's “Overused Tablecloth” from her Domestic Goddess collection (my all time favourite). I painted a small watercolour of myself and used it instead of a photo.

The background consists of layers of gesso, paint, paper, paper serviette, stamps (regular and embossed), ink and brown wrapping paper from the first parcel I received from Ireland with my Mixed Media Place materials in it.

You can just see in the background where a Finnabair doily stencil was used with clear embossing powder and watercolour applied over the top.

Can you also see the beautiful little bird postage stamp that came on my parcel from Ireland? :)

Supplies from Mixed Media Place:

Pastel unicorn

I love unicorns. They seem to be so delicate and full of love. The second I saw a little, wooden horse during my last trip to Polish mountains, I knew that I had to buy and alter it - I just wanted to have my own unicorn statue.

First, I painted it with gesso and then I started to create layers with gorgeous Luminarte Silks - soft, velvety, acrylic paints, which shimmer due to mica particles.

I have embellished my unicorn with flowers and a star made of Martha Stewart Crafter's Clay. I also created a horn.

One side of my unicorn is more romantic than the other. My mood changes so I wanted my unicorn to be able to reflect it. :)

Supplies from Mixed Media Place: