Over this school year I discovered that I really like working with mixed media and collage. Last semester in my General Illustration I class we worked a lot with acrylic paint, gouche, and watercolors. Painting does not come natural to me as other mediums like drawing or photography. Sometimes it can be hard to paint fine details, for me at least, and it’s even harder with oil paint. I still tried to push myself though and paint the best I could and I definitely have improved. In class one day when I was working on a self portrait I decided to try something new. The self portrait was based on a photo taken of me and the whole idea of the project was to use reference photos not just to copy the image how it was, but to improve it and make it better. I drew out the composition in pencil first and then painted blocks of color for the base. I personally love to experiment with color, especially bright, bold colors and compliments. In this particular piece, I used a lot of blue, orange, pink and green. Once I was done painting and it was dry, I went overtop with colored pencil. I used the colored pencil to create my eyes, lips, nose, details in my hair, and shading. I was happy with the turn out of this piece overall. Using colored pencil for the final details also created a nice texture and just added a final touch.

After finding my love for mixed media, I started to use this technique with acrylic paint and colored pencil more often. One of my more recent painting/drawing’s is a piece I did in my free time. It is based off of an older picture of my grandma and I. I was probably 3 or 4 in the photo I used. It’s one of my favorite mixed media’s that I’ve done so far. When I can find the time, I definitely would love to dig up some more older photos and recreate them too. I know these would make a great gift. Mother’s and father’s day are around the corner within the next few months. 😉

In my Figure Drawing I class we also used mixed media and collage and I came up with some interesting studies of the human body. For one study I used colored construction paper and pages out of a magazine and ripped them up into small pieces. From the magazine I tore out picture of landscapes, various textures, and also words. I thought using words could make my piece stand out a little. Then I took rubber cement and glued the little pieces onto my paper to build up the figure. I used softer colors like yellow, orange, and pink for highlights and darker ones like green and blue for shading. Once I had the entire figure constructed on the page, I went on top with crayons to add some final details to create the face, hair, and such. Before this, I had never thought of using collage in a class like figure drawing. This technique really made me think of my color choices and where I would be placing them on the page. Overall, it was a really fun way to push my creativity to build up the human figure.