Mixed Media Hearts with Personal Intentions

1. Introduction: Hello. In this class, we'll be making a colorful mixed media art project with hearts that have intentions and goals written on them and are personalized to you. Such as on this large heart, I wrote bravery, courage, and risk because those are three things that I'd like to bring more of into my life. What are some qualities that you would like to bring more into your life? This class is for anyone who wants to be creative, practice some art techniques, and dive into learning a bit about yourself in the process. We'll be using paper and paint, whatever you have on hand, and I'll describe some options for materials in the supplies video. My name is Kathleen Erila Johnson, and I'm a mixed media art teacher with a background in teaching elementary school art. My passions are art journaling, nature journaling, and finding ways to experience self growth to discover things about yourself and positive mental health. My YouTube channel is called Creative Solace Studios. You can find more mixed media art tutorials and inspiration there. I think of myself as an art explorer, and I encourage you to think of yourself as an art explorer, too. Here's a close up look at our class project, which I'll be demonstrating step by step from the background collage to the main focal points of the hearts with plenty of choices for you to customize your art project in ways that are pleasing to you. An added bonus is a bonus lesson, showing how to use some extra hearts in a little wall hanging. Thanks for joining me on this exciting adventure of creating mixed media hearts with personalized goals and intentions written on them. Let's get started and get our hands on some art supplies. 2. Supplies: Let's take a look at the supplies for this project. I used mixed media paper. The size that I used was eight by ten, two sheets of it, the same size, and then some scrap paper of the same type. To cut out your heart stencils. You can actually use sketchbook paper, drawing paper for this, or even card stock because we won't be painting directly onto the paper. We'll be doing a collage on top of it. Speaking of the collage, you'll need some collage papers. I have two bins here. This one is painted paper scraps. These are leftover from other projects that I have done, things that I have already painted on and we're just too pretty to throw away. I've got a little collection of collage papers here. And then my other bin is scrapbook paper scraps. Any kind of paper scraps. If you don't have paper scraps, you can use junk mail. You could use magazine pages. You could even use colored photocopy paper. Next is the paint. I used two colors of paint and white Gesso. Here's the white Gesso. I used fluid acrylic paint, but you could use any type of acrylic paint, whether it's artist acrylic, craft acrylic, or fluid acrylic. The adhesive I used was PVA glue. An a glue for collaging or a gel medium is fine. I used three kind of paint brushes, one a little bit bigger for the background, and two for more finer detailed round brushes. Cup of water and the scissors. Next are paint markers. I use two sizes of black poscas. Alternatively, you could use sharpier black paint that would go on top of the collage. And marker for writing the words, something with thinner, finer tip for writing the words. I also used a unival signo in white, but it didn't show up very well on these dots, so I ended up going over it with the white gesso. The unival signo pen was just for drawing the stencils of the hearts. Then at the end for the bonus lesson with the leftover hearts, I used a whole puncher. So fibers or trim ribbons or yarn for hanging. Then I went with some gorilla glue. You could use tacky or e 6,000 to make sure that the fibers were attached to the background. I did use some cardstock tabs on this wall hanging as well. Modify these supplies as you see fit and according to what you have on hand. 3. Background Collage: Step number one is collage. I have my background paper laid out, my bin of scrapbook paper scraps and my bin of painted paper scraps, one in the wrong category. These are the ones that I painted from other projects. But I'm not going to get too tied up in the particular pieces that I'm choosing because a lot of this will be covered up in the process with some paint. Your choice if you are cutting with scissors, or if you are tearing collage papers. I'm working quickly, not getting too tied up to each one, being conscious that some of it will not be seen at the end, and just having fun with the shapes, the textures of the different papers, the colors, placing them randomly in a collage. You can see that I do I do do. Gluing by hand, by finger. My blue bottle is empty right now. But even when I don't, I just like to get in and play with those supplies. That's just my way of doing things. I'm choosing to block off the corners first, but you go for it with whatever coag techniques. You. Our goal is to cover the whole paper. Each collage piece will be overlapping the papers next to it, and we'll have a nice dirty textural collage. M Have fun playing with your collage. Enjoy and relax with this meditative process. Then towards the end, start filling in the spaces of the collage with smaller pieces that are in the shapes that you need. Guess what? When you're done, you get to do it all over again and create a second collage that's the same size. One will be used for your background paper, and the other will be cut into papers. A 4. Heart Templates: After creating your two collages, let's make the heart template or the stencil that you'll be using to trace and cut out multiple hearts of the same size. Fold a paper in half so that the heart will be symmetrical and draw half of a heart on the fold. Feel free to practice a few times with different shapes of hearts and also different sizes of hearts. Some hearts can be big and puffy, others can be long and skinny. You decide. Then cut it out. Choose the template or templates that you like the best. Also be sure to set them on your background paper. So you can see how much space they'll take up and to make sure that you have room to trace them more than once in the next lesson. I chose to make one large heart and one small heart for a variety. I'll also include a handout of my templates. So they're available to you if you would like to use them. It's nice to have a personal handmade touch of designing your own hearts, but I've got you covered if you prefer to use my examples as patterns. Fs. 5. Tracing the Hearts: Now that we have our heart templates cut out. It's time to trace them on our background paper. First side, which of the two collages you'd like to use for your project background and which you'd like to save to cut into some additional hearts later. I'm choosing to trace my patterns with paint and a fine tipped round paint brush, but you're welcome to trace with pencil or marker as well. I'm using the same color of paint that I'm going to use for my entire background color in the next lesson. Reason that I chose to trace the hearts with paint is because the bright yellow color shows up nicely on top of all the colorful collage papers. Trace your heart templates multiple times onto the background paper, but don't entirely fell the background paper with hearts. Leave some space to add additional hearts that will be glued on later. This is a good time to customize your project with the placement of your hearts, as well as the angles that you put them in. I end up tracing one large and two small hearts. Then I decide that I would like an e sized heart too. I out another smaller heart template and I trace a that one onto the background. Do what looks pleasing to you. You might even feel like using other shapes entirely of your templates, such as stars or circles or geometric shapes or something else. Make this project your own with some of your own design decisions that you like, and we'll be painting the background in the next lesson. 6. Background Painting: S In this list, and we'll be painting the entire background of your paper. But leaving the shapes of the hearts without paint. It's like resting the colors and patterns of the background colas showing up through heart windows. Different types of paint will be more opaque or more translucent. The type of paint and the color of it will determine how much of the collage papers you can see through it. Since I'm using fluid acrylic and it's also in a bright yellow, I'll be able to see features of the collage papers even when the paint covers them. You can also dip your paint brush with regular acrylic paint into a touch of water to get a similar effect. This project would look good with more opaque background paint too. Even something dark like black would really make the heart stand out and pop, or consider metallic background or multiple colors in the background, do you. I opt in for yellow because it's bright and cheery and positive looking, but with so many colors of paint and types of paint available to you, the choices are atless. Be mindful of the direction of your brush strokes, such as curving them around the shapes of the hearts, and I'm using a larger round brush than the one I used to trace the hearts in the last lesson. Sometimes you might feel wary about covering up your hard work of the collage, but for me, layering is the name of the game and mixed media art and art journaling pages. The yellow paint on top of the different collage papers looks really yummy to me. With that said, keep in mind, it's a handy practice to photograph your artwork at different stages. In that way, you could print out your own collage papers before painting this background, glazing layer, and you could use your printouts or digital photographs again in other art projects. 7. Outlining the Hearts: Looking at our hearts, they're starting to stand out from the yellow background layer of paint that was just painted. Let's accent them even more, working to have them be eye catching focal points of the whole project. Start by choosing a second color of paint that will show up on the background color. Still using a medium sized round brush, I'm now outlining the hearts. I decided to leave a layer of yellow on the inside of the heart and then to apply my tal layer. Decide if you want to use more than one color, but hold off on using white or black because we'll be doing both white and black painting, patterning and doodling soon. Consider if you want to paint these accent heart outlines after the background paint is dry, or while it's still a little wet to get some color mixing happening for a slightly grungy or textural look. For sure, if your paints aren't in the same color family, if you don't want them to turn muddy or brown, then let the first background paint dry For example, yellow, blue, and green are in the same family. So if my teal smears a little into the yellow background, it will look like a good mix. Yellow, red and orange also blend nicely together as do blue, red and purple. Colors next to each other on the color wheel are called analogous colors. They're compatible friends and are handy to keep in mind when you might want paint to mix slightly, but not clash with each other. 8. Cutting Out the Hearts: I a Putting this beautiful background paper to the side to dry. Let's turn our attention to the second collage paper. Flip it over to the back side that's plain white. This is where we'll be tracing extra hearts to cut out. They'll be glued onto the main project, also, giving our artwork some three dimensional qualities. Place your largest heart template close to a corner and trace it with a pin. You might feel the bumpy textures of the collage papers on the other side, so trace slowly and carefully. Tracing on the white side of the paper makes it easier to see our lines. Next, place the smaller templates where they can fit on the paper and trace as many as you can. Most likely, you won't be using all of these hearts in your main project, but you're welcome to use any leftover hearts in the bonus project that I'll share the wall hanging or save them for other projects. I didn't want to waste any of this pretty collage paper. I snuggled them up close to one another and turn the patterns in different directions and was able to fit in quite a few hearts. Now use the scissors that's capable of cutting through those layers of collage and cut out the hearts. There are two ways to go about this. You could cut all the curves of the heart while it's attached to the larger paper, but I find it easier to cut each heart out individually, not exactly on the lines, and then I have a smaller paper to work with and I can trim around the lines of each heart. Got pattern scissors. That might be fun to try as long as they're strong enough to tackle cutting through this thick paper. I just have to say that I love cutting on the blank side of the paper and then flipping over each heart for the big reveal. It's fun to see how the collage papers end up being positioned on each one. If you're like me, always thinking about what else I could do with art materials and not wanting to waste any. Even the leftover scraps from the negative space around the hearts look pretty. I think I'm going to save some of the larger scraps for some other future unknown projects as well. 9. Outlining with White: She We'll now outline the hearts in white after the project has dried. Saving white paint for the end of the painting portion of a project is really fun because it accents your painting in ways that are really striking. White makes these heart shapes stand out and pop looking more complete than they did before. I'm using white Gesso because I like how the consistency is thinner and smoother, more watery than a regular acrylic, but any white paint is fine. I'm switching to the finer tipped round brush, and I suppose I should say something about the way I use paint directly from the bottle to gasp. I don't use a palette all that often. Same thing as dipping my fingers in the glue. Now I'm dipping my paint brush in the paint bottle. Some people might be horrified and worried about contamination of colors and rightly so. But here's an example of, Hey, it's okay to use techniques that feel natural to you, but it's not necessary to copy my exact way of doing things. I also want to point out that the heart in the lower right is turning out slightly warped or wonky because of how it's overlapping the one next to it. No worries if your hearts get a little misshapen. I touch mine up a bit and thicken one side a bit. But when the paper is filled with all the goodies and details that are in store next, some minor wobbliness won't matter. 10. Black Marker Doodles: Before I get in right into the drawing of black lines and patterns in this lesson, I think it's a good time to reflect on the project and where it's going. Here's the background paper with its hearts, and then we have more little hearts cut out. The cut of hearts will be eventually glued in different positions around the project, sometimes with hearts overlapping one another. You don't have to plan this out right now, but I wanted to give you a visual of where we're headed. What we'll be doing now is drawing some black lines and patterns around the hearts, the borders, on the background paper, as well as on the little cut out hearts like framing them. The next step in our art making process is accenting our hearts with black paint markers. I'm going to practice on a paper here. You may practice on your own with some doodles or you can go right onto your project. Anytime you use a paint marker, make sure you shake it first to prime that paint, get it nice and flowing, and consider some patterns either on top of your hearts or around your hearts. There's lines, double lines, dashed lines, dotted lines. What kind of patterns can you come up with for outlining or accenting around the edges of your hearts? Consider different sizes of markers. Come up with some eye catching bold patterns for the framing of your hearts, but leave the center of the hearts open for some writing that we'll be doing later on? When you're drawing on top of collage itself, just be conscious that your different papers will create bumps for you and different papers take the marker differently, whether they have a smooth surface or a glossy surface. Go nice and slowly. Find some interesting ways to accent the borders of your hearts. Add your own linear graphic style here by drawing the borders with a paint marker. Have some fun doodling in this step. And in the next step, I'll share what I came up with for my outlining and doodling on my hearts. 11. White Paint Doodles: What kinds of black paint marker patterns and doodles did you come up with? In this lesson, we'll be following up the black doodles with some white accents. I'm deciding to place a cut out heart right over my large heart, and I'm planning where a couple smaller hearts will be glued on. One slightly off the left side of the paper and another covering up part of that wobbly or wonky heart that I mentioned before. I also lined up three hearts at the bottom outside of the paper because I'm pondering, hanging them off, dangling outside of the page. I'm attempting to add some white gel pen dots, but my pen is running out. I end up dipping the back end of a paint brush into white Gesso and stamping on white dots that way instead. Include this in the video because I think it's helpful to see an example of when one thing doesn't quite work, try something else. I'm now going to be painting more white dots and lines as highlights throughout the piece. I'm really curious about how you're making your project unique and adding your own flavor and style to it. If you ever feel like replicating a tutorial exactly like an instructor's example, try doing at least a few changes of your own, whether that's using different colors, shapes, materials, design choices or techniques. If I create something that looks really similar to someone else's tutorial that I'm watching, I also like to rewatch it again and make even more of my own stylistic choices the second time around by doing a second project, just some food for thought. Now, I'll put on a 1 minute musical interlude while I'm finishing up some white accents and highlights. See you in the next lesson. She 12. Gluing the Hearts: Wow, the time has come to glue the hearts onto the background paper. I decide not to string those three little hearts off the bottom of the page. I do, however, want to raise up some of the hearts up off the paper. So I'm going to use a piece of cardboard to do just that. You could glue your hearts directly down onto the paper or use cardboard or other thick paper, like I'm doing, that's cut into small rectangles. I'm putting glue on the back of those rectangles, and I'm going to put three on the back of the main large heart. One on each side of the top of the heart, and one in the center on the bottom. Then with an extra dollop of glue onto the cardboard. The heart is glued onto the background paper. Smaller hearts need just one rectangle of cardboard on the back of them. I used a liberal amount of glue, so I give them one sturdy push and then let them set into place. Notice how that last one I push, I tuck right underneath the larger heart and it nestles right in there. Let's look and see how that cardboard trick lifts the hearts up like they're levitating, just floating above the background. Can you see that space in between the heart and the paper? There it is. After that, decide if you'd like some of the cut out hearts also glued down flat onto the background. I'm doing a few hearts like that to add some more dimensions to add some more texture to the project. I'm getting excited to meet you in the next lesson where we'll talk about brainstorming your intentions, goals, and sentiments, the words that we'll write on the hearts. The main meaning behind the project. I'll see you there. 13. Personalized Intention Setting: Congratulations on making it this far in the course. We are ready to create our personalized intentions. The main heart of the matter. Before putting them on the actual project, I would like to do some brainstorming and introduce you to this packet of goodies, these handouts that I have created for you. First of all, were the heart templates. I hope you found them if you needed them earlier. I had put a little note about them. There's various sizes. Next, where we are right now in the project is brainstorming our intentions. This is where the self growth happens. This is the invitation to learn about yourself and grow as a person. What do we want this project to be about? What do you want to get out of all this? What's the why of why we're doing this? What's the deeper meaning for you? Think about the prompts on here, and then just free form journal, your thoughts, your answers to them. For example, things I want to bring more of into my life. I would like to bring more confidence and abundance. Now, you might want to write actual physical things. Maybe you're looking for something specific as far as a job, an object, a person, a concrete things. But for me, I'm going deeper than that and going to the abstract quality is the essence of things, self love. I would love to bring more self love into my life. Go ahead and just continue with this handout. The other prompts are, I want to learn how to. What is it you'd like to do? I'd like to learn how to take more risks, and so I'll jet that down. Moving along the best version of myself is, Wow, if you in your optimal state, what would you be like? I would be able to cope with life's challenges, and I'd be healthy. I want to enrich myself by focusing on, and I'm ready to become more what? The second page of the handout is, I dream of being. Wow. What could you dream yourself into being? I want to take a risk to do what? Maybe you do have concrete goals, and I did put numbers one, two and three. Maybe they're sequential. Maybe they're separate things, specific goals that you would like to have in your life. Qualities you want to strengthen in yourself. There's all qualities that we have already. It's not like you have to come up with entirely new qualities or things to bring into your life. Maybe you just want to strengthen what's already there and bring it out some more. There's the handout with the prompts. This is what the one looks like with no prompts written on. Spend some time brainstorming your personal intentions, and in the next lesson, I'll intro you to some optional extra handouts in case you'd like to take the writing step even further. I also have a list of 52 positive personal qualities that I uploaded into the files that can help you with these writings as well. More about that in the next lesson. 14. Optional Additional Handouts: She. In the last lesson, we wrote our intention brainstorming handouts. In this lesson, I'd like to introduce you to some optional additional handouts to support your writing and self growth journey. Perhaps you want to take this a step further. I like to cover my bases and give you options for your self growth processing. So maybe you want to take those affirmation or take those intentions and actually write them into affirmations. For example, my intention was confidence Iterate that into an affirmation, I could start with a sentence starter I am. I am confident and brave. No I want to be, or I'm going to be or I'm working towards, but say it in the present tense. I am confident and brave or whatever the intention is that you want to turn into an affirmation. Affirmation is a complete standstans, and a sentence that is showing you possessing, having already those intentions that you were brainstorming about. This is an extra piece of the packet. Optional if you want to take the project in this direction and this way. I also gave you some options for journaling. I love journaling. Maybe it's hard for you to come up with the intentions right away or know what you want to write on your art project. Maybe you like to write entire paragraphs. Maybe you want to write a poem on here. Maybe you want to write lists. There's lined paper and lined paper for intention journaling, and then also affirmation journaling. Maybe you'd like to just make a list of, I am confident and brave. I am healthy. I find productive ways to cope with life's challenges. I am expressive. Then the last handout that I have for you is 52 examples of personal qualities. If you are challenged with coming up with ideas that you want to write on these brainstormings, here's a bunch of them. Or since there's 52 of them, you could even plan to journal one about these every week of the year. Journal about being adventurous or appreciative, or assertive or authentic, perceptive, reflective, supportive. I brainstormed a bunch of personal qualities on here that I wanted to share with you. For this step of our project, it is not on the artwork itself, but it is taking a little break from the art project, and brainstorming the words, phrases, intentions, goals, things that you're going to want to in the next step, write onto the artwork. So have some fun, play, do a little self discovery and see what you come up with for your personal intention setting. 15. Writing the Intentions: Now that we've done all of the valuable brainstorming of our dreams goals and intentions, let's solidify these chosen words by writing them onto the hearts in our vibrant artwork. In this way, we're cementing our intentions as we write them down like a stamp of approval. The written words provide insight into our own hearts and our feelings. And when we see them on the artwork, they're a call to action, directing us towards our own personal development, so powerful. I chose to use a fine tipped black marker. You might want to use a large, bold, broad tipped marker or to write in different lettering styles or colors, or even to use rubber stamped letters. It's also your choice if your words are legible or not. Maybe you'd like to write all over the background in entire paragraphs. If your project is filled with an explosion of colors already and you can't clearly see your writing. It's always an option to print words out from the computer or to handwrite them on a separate piece of paper, perhaps a white one, and then cut them out and glue them into this already abundant collage. Decide how you would like to write your intentions onto the project. Choose from the words, phrases or sentences that you planned out in the previous lesson. I chose one or more intentions to be held in each heart, and when finished, I paused to consider adding even more hearts to the project. Do you have extra hearts that you might want to work into your own piece? Watch the next lesson to find out what I decide to do, and how to add some finishing touches to this almost complete dynamic creation. 16. Finishing Details: Yes, Let's finish our project. This lesson is where you look over your artwork and ask yourself, what else is needed? Is there an empty space somewhere? Does something look incomplete? Is there any way to pop in more of your own unique style or extra materials? I'm still playing with my extra hearts. I had us create lots of hearts, so we would have choices. Now what to do with them. As I mentioned previously, you could hang some with ribbon or yarn off the bottom of your project. More could be added to the project paper itself, including extending some off the edges of the paper or overlapping the hearts that are already in place. Excess hearts could be saved for future projects, used as bookmarks or gift tags or tucked in side of a card for a special occasion handmade gift. I decide to complete three more small hearts. With the same techniques we've already used. Written intentions, painted borders, Marker Doodles. You decide if your project is complete already, and there's nothing more for you to do in this step, or if you'd like to work on more hearts, or more writing, painting, doodling, or something else entirely like a sprinkle of glitter or something else that you dream up. Spoiler alert. If your project is finished, that you still want to create another bonus project. In the next lesson, I'll demonstrate how to create the bonus wall hanging that I shared at the beginning of this course. Well, I guess it's not a spoiler since I already told you about it. But it's more like a celebration of yea, we're there and have almost made it to the end of the main project already. I'm going to find room for these three little hearts that I've been tending to on the project itself. I'll utilize the additional hearts on the right side of my workspace for the bonus wall hanging. I'm looking forward to seeing photos of your class projects uploaded into the class gallery and celebrating your cat, expressions, intentions with you. I feel our connectedness and support of one another by having the gallery as a safe, comforting, positive and uplifting space for all. Now let's find out about that bonus lesson that I promised, and then one short concluding lesson after that to wrap everything up and remind us what we learned in this course. 17. Bonus Project: Wallhanging: Bonus time, extra innings, overtime. Who likes a good free bonus gift? I know I do. This lesson makes use of any extra heart pieces that you have or that you might want to create. We'll assemble them together into a cute wall hanging, short and sweet, and very eye catching and inspirational to decorate your home, work space, wherever, or to give is a unique gift. Decorate the hearts as before with their background collage papers, painted borders, and marker doodles. This time, I also used my yellow background paint to paint in the background of a heart as well. This ties in nicely with the main project and could be displayed in tandem with the main project on a wall. After writing your special intention phrases, I had a fun time coming up with new inspirational goals for different areas of my life. After doing that, grab any kind of a fiber, such as yarn, ribbon, cord, string, lace, or twine. Heavy duty glue, such as gorilla glue, e 6,000 or tacky will also be helpful. Make the loop at the top of the wall hanging first. Punch a hole with a hole punch in the top center of the first heart. This is where you can hang it on a nail or a tack or whatever. Fold the fiber in half and insert it into the hole from the front of the heart through the back. Then pull those loose tails through the loop. Adjust as needed for a good fit. Hold both tails together at the top and tie a knot. I end up having to trim the frayed end off from mine also. This loop gives us a way to hang your wall hanging up once it's finished. There we go. Arrange your hearts with the spacing that you want between them and measure out one long piece of your chosen fiber that's long enough to attach your whole project strung together. Or you could even use a different type of fiber or trim between each heart also. Next, cut a rectangular piece of cardstock that's large enough to be glued over the fiber. It's like you're making your own piece of tape only with cardstock and strong glue on it. Depending upon the type of fiber that you have, a thinner piece of paper might do as well. I opted for the cardstock also to give it a little weight while it's hanging on the wall. Press the little rectangle over your fiber and hold it there for a moment to really secure that fiber into place. If any of your hearts are small, you might need to snip the corners from your card stock rectangle so that it'll fit onto the back of the heart and not show from the front side. Repeat this process for each heart, joining them together into a string of hearts. I love the movement of this piece. When the wall hanging is on display. This wall hanging is a nice compliment to our main project, and I hope you enjoy this bonus lesson in this little extra gift to finish off our time together. Or perhaps this inspires you to create something else altogether, like an entire mobile. So fun. I'm looking forward to seeing what bonus ideas you create. Pop a photo into the class gallery of Any Bonus projects, as well as your main project, and let's share. So fun to share this extension with you and thanks for joining me in overtime. Extra innings of our mixed media hearts with intentions written on them. 18. Conclusion: She. Thank you so much for spending creative time with me today. As we made mixed media, collage, and paint hearts and wrote positive intentions on them of things that we want to bring in our lives. It's kind of like we cemented our goals as we wrote the words on the paper, sealing the deal as to what we want to be bringing into our lives. Be sure to hang your project up somewhere where you can see it often and absorb all that creative energy. Also upload it to the project gallery. I would love to see it, and I'm sure others would, too. Thank you for following me here in Skillshare. I'm Kathleen Ela Johnson, and you can find me on YouTube and elsewhere, social media at Creative Solace Studios. One takeaway from this class is to remember to connect art and the creative process with personal growth and positive mental health. Also, remember to be an art explorer.