Summer Music vol.1 - Freedom!!!

Hello, everyone! We are so thrilled to announce a new summer challenge here on Mixed Media Place!

We have to admit that while discussing the new topics, our Design Team got really excited, well... there was even some dancing involved. :)

So what is the plan...?

For the next three months we will present our interpretations of some really great songs and we hope you will join us!
You can create artworks inspired by the music, lyrics, video or any association that your Muse will suggest. :) And this month we'll start with the ultimate classic that is "Freedom" by George Michael.
So turn your speakers on and enjoy some great art that this song sparked in our DT's imaginations. :)

"Freedom" is just one of these songs which are really connected to my life. Every time I hear it, I start do dance. I just can't stop myself :) But at the same time I really like the lyrics. It's a song about changes, about being more mature, about freedom of choices. It's ok to change our life, it's ok to fight for our independence, it's ok to try to find out who you really are.

Freedom is important for me and it's not the first time when I created something inspired by this word. This time I decided to do something different than usually. I let my freedom flow. ;) Uncontrolled painting with paints, a brayer and creative palette, freehand writing (I barely use it on my works because I'm not very proud of my handwriting ;) ), freehand drawing, more layers of paint, some splashes - everything very intuitive and not calculated for a certain effect. I just let myself play and have fun.
In the meantime I started to listen to another piece of music - I felt inspired (still in a "meaning of freedom" way) so I also used lyrics from another song . Hey - why not? I'm free. I can do anything I want. :)

The result may look messy and random but for me there are plenty of little signs and important things to rememeber.

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I watched the music video several times and looked up the meaning of the song: why did George write this song, what did he want to say?

I let it all sink in for a moment and the thing that came back to mind every time I thought about it, were the explosions in the video!

So I picked colors reminding me those explosions. :)))

And here's a video tutorial of how I made this spread:



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My page inspired by this song has given me the opportunity to play with ”pattern”.

The two faces representing the other person we sometimes need or are forced to be, are decorated with lots of pattern coming from stamps, tissue paper and some rub-ons. Embossed pattern for some texture and water coloured areas to soften. Base paper and die-cut doilies are from the beautiful 9th Wave collection.

The detail on the eyebrows, eyelid and lips was done using a beautiful stamp. The colour underneath comes from a fill your own “empty marker” pen and I’ve used rubber masking fluid as a protective mask around the edges. I will put some more details on my blog.

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I am blessed to have the freedom to choose my way of living. I know I'm privileged and wanted to make a page to show that I don't take it for granted.

Black is my favourite color so I chose to use the beautiful Lonely Evenings paper designed by Finnabair for 7Dots Studio. I've used some gesso as a base for the colours.

I love bright colors and I'm very happy about the Neon thing going on right now. I painted with Ecoline and acrylic paints and I added some neon washi tapes. Finally I added some embellishments and the title.

The picture is a polaroid taken last fall when I was teaching on a crop outside Bergen. Something I love to do and I hope to do even more in the future.

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When I was listening to George Michael's "Freedom", I immediatly thought about Her: the Statue of Liberty.

She has been and still is the symbol of Freedom: the one who is giving hope to thousands of people.

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I remember this song from my youth. It was never a big hit for me so I guess that's why I was  struggling at first to get a grip of the piece.

I find music very inspiring, but I have to admit that usually I listen to something very different.

The images of the video hit me hard, but I wanted to be more inspired by the music itself so I chose to go with the lyrics. Although I have to admit that the video itself plays a big role in my spread.

I used the blue color scheme and printed profiles of one of the super models in the video. But the lyrics have a captivating idea - a person doesn't belong to any other than himself. So very true.

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I love this song! Freedom of being me is one of the most important things in my life.

I wouldn't be able to live in disguise!

For me, one of the symbols of freedom is the sea - so I used a photo of myself at the seaside.

The background for this layout was created with Izinks (love them!!), gesso, stencils, stamping and glimmer mists. All papers and paper elements are 7 Dots Studio.

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And now it's time for a very pleasant moment - announcing the winner of our last Emotional Challenge episode - the topic was Stress and our favorite mixed media interpretation was created by...

... Marina ...

with this beautiful art journal spread:

Congratulations! Please contact us to claim your prizes: store(at)mixedmediaplace.com

So, now it's time for you - has our song made you feel like dancing and creating? :)
Show us you creations! It's just enough to add a link to your work using the inlinkz tool below.
We'll be waiting until August 19th.

Then, one work chosen by our DT will be awarded a prize (a discount coupon to be used in Mixed Media Place store).

Summer Day Experiment

Summer days are here to stay. Why not play with some mixed media? ;)
Today we have Kasia encouraging us all to experiment and try out new inspirations.

Hello! How are you spending this beautiful summer day?

I'm feeling great, especially that I had a few days off so I could take a deep breath and relax a bit. When I'm relaxed I feel that special need to create more and try out different things.

That is the story of the work that I'd like to show you today.

This time my inspiration was the art of Sabrina Ward Harrison. I know that I'm very far from this artist but there is a special sparkle in all of her works that I wanted to ignite in myself. And I think I managed to do it.

I covered my page with gesso and started playing with paints. I would love to tell you step by step what I did here but to be honest, it was just an experiment, simply jumping from one medium to another.

It may not be exactly my style and maybe I will never try this technique again (but hey! why not!?), but I'm happy I dared to work a bit differently from my usual process and to work boldly.

That is another reason to love holidays! :)

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Liberating Lettering

There is nothing like hand lettering to give your art journals or canvases a unique personal feel.
Have you ever tried calligraphy?
We hope you feel inspired by today's post!

Hi, today I have a double art journal page to share with you.

Last weekend this June I went to a fantastic 4-day long class of Calligraphy with Katharina Pieper. We learned about rhythm and how to work with different writing tools. That inspired me to create this double art journal page.

The sentence written in both English and Norwegian came to me while working on the background. I worked in a big art journal book this time and made the background with layers of paper and tape before adding gesso. This was a good quality book by Dyan Reavely and Ranger so I didn't have to use it, but I wanted some texture so I did.

When we learned about the rhythm it was not important to make anything readable, it was just to feel the rhythm. I took the privilege to transfer this feeling to the letters. Some of them might be hard to read, but for me it is ok. I know what it says and I like the look of each letter. It says :

Art can be a liberating source of inspiration to untold opportunities. 

Right now I'm not sure what it actually means for me, but I guess there will be some great fun in the future.

I hope you like the page and if it inspired you to use some text on your page next time, I'm happy. :)

Thank you for looking

Linda

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Box Book Magic

In our art/craft world there is no such thing as "useless" - would you agree? :)
Gayle is making the point today - ever so beautifully...

Hi everyone ! My project today is about taking something “useless” and using it as a creative base for lots of creative fun.
I was given several small (16x13.5x4cm deep) boxes that were used to hold new hearing aids by a friend who works in this field. The boxes are the perfect size to hold 6x4 inch photos. Anyway, I thought I would make a box into a book, with pages (eventually).

So I cut away the front, left the back (the spine) and the two sides, top and bottom so the book can stand up.

Now I have a front cover, an inside front cover, a back, a back inside cover and 3 sides to play with. 

First of all, I did the inside back cover as it had cardboard compartments that I took out and then had ugly glue patches left. But I’m not showing you the back cover today, you will only see a bit of bright magenta lace showing. I’m going to show you how I made the front.

This is the top of the box, or the front cover of the book. I painted around the edges in acrylic Paynes Grey paint. This front cover will have a piece of 7 Dots Studio Nature Walk “Grey Day” paper as its base.

7 Dots patterned paper for my cover, a Prima stencil used with moulding paste and then coloured with, of course, beautiful Silks Acrylic Glaze.

Now some embellishments for the cover: Finnabair’s Vitage Trinkets, Prima Doily Die-Cut, glass beads, pearls and embossing enamel.

The doily is cut from Finnabair’s Sunrise-Sunset Collection - ”Corona” paper. The glass beads have been coloured with Silks Acrylic Glaze in Boysenberry.

Some Gold/Wine Embossing flakes add texture and richness, and I softened the “whiteness” of the pearls with Prima Color Bloom “Gold Foil” Mist.

I used Finnabair’s Epoxy Stickers over the top of paper circles that have the embossing enamel on it or the coloured moulding paste.

So, that’s how much fun you can have with something that was going to be tossed away. I have done the front inside cover and back inside cover, and maybe I will show them another day.

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p.s. Do you remember about our Ecoline Week? You still have time 'till July 16th to grab a 10% discount on all Ecoline watercolours simply entering this code at the checkout:  %EcoLmmP%