Your song is beautiful - Mixed media with Schminke Acrylic Inks

 Texture, layers, texture layers and "letting go" is generally what I am thinking when i embark on a mixed media project.

What I find challenging is letting go of the talk in my head about whether this is going to work out and releasing the "knowing" of what the project is going to turn out like.  However, experience has taught be that this is where you just have to be comfortable with this uneasiness and at the end of the day, if its really bad you can just paint over it!!

On this project,  i have brought together quite different media,  primarily i have been using the Schminke Acrylic Inks and various mixed media materials.

What I really love about the Schminke Acrlic inks that they come with these nifty little tools like the masking pen (the blue) and the marker that you can fill with the ink so get a really fine link. I also love using the inks with a brush just like i would with watercolours but the inks just are so vibrant they are just lovely.

Step1

I found this old book of music in a second hand shop that I really love using in my mixed media works, so i used medium to stick this to an canvas that i was recycling. I also used bits and bobs of some serviettes to also stick these lovely little floral segments on the corners just to frame the work a bit. I know these wont show through much towards the end but sometimes something pops out and i love working on textures like this.

Step2

 I decided on a little bird and sketched out my drawing in a separate sketch book, i then looked up some reference photos of birds to get the angles and the colours of a bird i wanted to use.

 Here I used the masking pen to mask out some areas that I wanted to remain white. This was a handy little tool much easier to apply this way than trying to use a brush with the masking fluid as i normally would have done.

 Next i decided to fill my marker with the black ink. There are 3 sizes to the markers i wanted to use it at the medium tip size for this project.

 Next came filling in my bird with the brown ink. I used this much like i would with watercolour by using my brush with water to fade out certain areas. I used the dipper straigh out of the bottle to get the colour down in an more fluid line for the branch.

Step3

Then i wanted to white out some of the background as i knew i wanted to paint over this. So I did this with some gesso and acrylic paint in thick applications, I then used the Princeton - Catalyst Blades to move the paint and show the background.

I knew that i was going to spray this over with more of the acrylic inks as this leaves a lovely texture when it drys.

So then a took a deep breath and dabbed ink and sprayed. Sometimes this is scary - just do it! :)

 I then as that dried i played around with adding bits of acrylic paint and more ink in different areas. I find at this stage its fun to see what evolves as the materials dry you never know whats going to happen.

I also reinforced back with the ink filled marketr the bird in certain areas and went back over with some more of the brown on the bird.

Step4

 After this dried, the next step was to finalise the details, i painted the whole thing with a Matt Medium as i knew that i then wanted to add coloured pencil to the bird for the details. I also blcok out certain areas with more acrylic paint until i was happy with it.

Step5

Once that was dry I applied coloured pencil, Mepxy Markers and pastel and over the whole thing in different areas until i was happy with the result

Then I added my words.


I hope you like my little demo using Schminke Acrylic Inks and all types of mixed media.