This week the Lovely Louise Nelson demistifies a little of the marvellous mixed media trend for us…
One of the many mixed media trends influencing scrapbooking styles are those used by art journalers. Often they will use a variety of pens, pencils paints and gel mediums to create their backgrounds, alter photos and/or collaged/stamped images. With this in mind Louise has printed her photo-shopped photo straight onto the cardstock. Using the Hero Arts Water Colour Paints she has highlighted the black areas of the image to make them stand out and create vibrant and interesting contrasts.
Using the Luxe alpha stamps, another 'go-to' technique for art journalers, Louise has created her title in a 'white space' of her image, and then hand journalled the subtitle in a smaller white space area of her background image.
To embellish her layout Louise hand cut out hearts from cardstock adhered them to the layout and then artistically blended them into her layout by outlining them with black water colour paint and gel pen.
Perhaps the simplest definition for Mixed Media is the use of multiple mediums; for example, paints and gels, various types of papers, found objects, ephemera, pencils, crayons, charcoals, materials, fibers, etc etc. I think you’re getting the idea! Whereas scrapbooking traditionally has been recognised as primarily a papercraft with some use of alternative mediums for embellishment, mixed media depends on the use of so much more.
Increasingly, scrapbookers are introducing other mediums used by artists into their creative process; to not only satisfy their own creative desires but also to add that extra 'something' to their layouts. More recently, scrapbookers are also using more 'artistic' and 'freestyle' methods when incorporating these mediums into their layouts.
For this particular layout Louise has adopted very much a free style method. She has used several layers of glimmer mist and masks/stamps to create a subtle then bold artistic effect for her background. To enhance her design she has used water colour paint, machine stitching, and gel pen to highlight the masked images, create her title, and further embellish the layout. To add visual interest she has also cut out the center of one of the hand painted butterflies.
Louise has no doubt that there is a very strong influence of other artforms and mixed media when search through the online galleries and forums. Until recently, what has been referred to as 'arty' scrappers or the 'arty' style of scrapbooking remained a small and often fringe genre of scrapbooking. Increasingly scrapbookers have started to incorporate what is considered to be arty/mixed mediums and styles into their scrapbooking with the most wonderful artistic and freestyle look.
To demonstrate this, Louise is sharing one of her favourite international scrapbooker/crafters Caroline Rondel [thank you Caroline] from the north east of France. From the examples provided here of a gorgeous mini album and layouts you can see how Caroline utilizes a variety of mediums and techniques, to create her album and layouts. They are a wonderful combination of both art and memory documentation
For this particular layout Caroline has continued to use a variety of techniques and mediums; Paints, and collage, to create a layout of her 'dream home'.
Caroline has created just the most gorgeous layout of her newborn daughter using gel and paint mediums in a wonderful freestyle and artistic manner. She has embellished her layout with machine stitching and loose threads, and material whichs adds a wonderful textural effect.
For this particular layout Caroline has used multiple mediums to create a colourful collaged patchwork background effect; using paint, different types of papers, a variety of stamps and ink, stickers and images. She has used different modes of application with the paint; dry scraping, and circular implements for stamping the paint. Overlying this are the collaged and mosaiced pieces and strips of paper, then on the final layer various shaped stamps.
