Mixed Media Mastery: Collage Unleashed - Class 3: 100 Days of Collage (Day 15 - Day 21)

1. Introduction Class 3: Welcome to the studio. It's royal here. I'm so glad you joined me. I'm a mixed media artist. I've been painting and exhibiting for over 30 years, and I'm incredibly passionate about giving you an experience to create art that not only enables you to produce beautiful artworks, but that impacts your life on so many different levels. Art is a way of really expressing ourselves from the core of who we are as a person. And when you can create something and you say, hey, I like that, then you're affirming to yourself that, hey, I'm okay. And right now we really need this in our lives. Teaching art for me is a way to really empower you to affirm your own identity, to have a clearer sense of self. And this experience really impacts all areas of your life. I'm really excited about this art class because it's the most comprehensive mixed media art class that I've ever created. Celebrate your creative self Mixed media art class. 100 Days of Colors. Yes, we are on an epic adventure journeying through 100 days. Welcome to class Three, Mixed Media Mastery in college. I want to give you an opportunity to find your own style, your own creative voice. The freedom to make a mess, to make mistakes, and to truly know what it means to create art. Make mistakes with freedom. That's what this class is all about. I have incorporated teaching the skills of mixed media techniques with the intimacy and personal approach of an art journal class. There's no pressure with an art journal. You don't need to sell or to exhibit. Nobody's watching, and you can really develop your creativity freely. In this class, we are going to explore mixed media mastery. And over the course of this class, you'll embark on an artistic adventure with a unique collage project. For each of the seven lessons, we'll cover how to craft a treasured time piece. Experiment with nature's harmony, develop abstract landscapes, play with tissue paper, water color contrast, black and white collage, reuse and restore with recycled materials, and to finish with a multimedia masterpiece. Doesn't that sound amazing? There's seven in the class and there's 14 classes in this series. There's so much to learn and there's so much to gain by exploring your creativity with mixed media applications. Because there's no rules, we can use whatever we want. Every project you undertake will reflect your own individual style and interpretation. My primary objective for this class is to nurture your creative growth within a relaxed, fun, and enjoyable environment. You'll find my teaching style to be informative, but conversational. I'm right here with you. We're together in this epic journey and I'm with you every step of the way. This class is perfect for beginners because I'll show you step by step how to achieve the results and which art materials to use. But if you're a little more advanced in your art making, then I'm sure you're going to enjoy the challenge of some of these mixed media projects. The style of each project and artwork is entirely up to you. It will depend on your individual expression, how you approach the prompts, the colors that you use, and the textures and materials you decide on. It's a very personal approach, but extremely exciting and encouraging. Because the prompts are here to help you to inspire you to create your projects and have fun along the way. What I love about this class is that each lesson is so individual and unique. But we are building on each class. So we're learning more and more. We're also bringing materials into this class from the previous class. And we get to really develop the techniques. What I love about using an art journal is those ideas and artworks and techniques are in a book altogether, so I can look back and go all I liked that idea or I liked that technique and develop that some more into maybe bigger artworks or other particular projects. It's like having your own personal diary of fabulous art techniques and projects and being able to look back and use that inspiration at another time. Or even just to look back and see how far you've grown, how far you've come, and how much your artwork has developed, right? So I'm hoping that you're up to class three and you've already worked through Class 1.2 because you'll know how much fun it is and you'll already have a lot of the art supplies. I can't wait to show you what we're working on in this class. So let's gather our materials. Let's get ready for our epic adventure. 2. Material list: So why are we doing 100 days of college? That does sound like a bunch. For me, creating art really is a place of freedom to express your thoughts and your feelings, to play with beautiful colors and textures. And creating an art journal really is so liberating because you don't have to exhibit, you don't have to sell, you don't even have to show anybody if you don't want to. It means you can create freely without worrying about judgment or criticism. And being on the journey of 100 days means that you progressively are consistent in your art making. So you can't help but get better. Because truly creating better art is really about mileage under the brush. It has a lot to do with practice with trying different techniques, with allowing yourself to experiment with making a big mess with doing it wrong and trying again. Being on this journey really is about you allowing yourself to freely create, to learn to grow, and to see where you can push your creative boundaries. The whole series is 14 classes, and then each class has seven lessons. So you could theoretically do a college a day for 100 days. In reality, I know time doesn't allow for that kind of creative passion. You could perhaps do a lesson a week and that would really give you a beautiful, consistent practice to really process the materials, the techniques, and to really enjoy the prompts. Each class is self contained with a particular theme, and this class is all about mixed media mastery. We're going to use a whole heap of different techniques and different mediums, put them together, create fabulous layers. And let's see where this wonderful creative pursuit takes us, right? So when it comes to the materialist, this is class three. So you should already have a bunch. We're going to be using acrylic paints, and personally, I really like to use the Liquitex basics a lot of the time. I also tend to use Golden. Now of course, you don't have to use these particular paints. You don't have to use these particular colors. And let's just start off by saying you don't have to follow the big long list that I've given you. I've given you a list of the colors and the paints and the different mediums that I'm using throughout this class. But you don't have to use them. In fact, I really want you to use what you have first, that's really important. And then if you find something on my list that you just have to have, well, then you just have to have it, but use what you have at home first and see what you can create with. I also absolutely love to use the sprayings, and I find the zings a fabulous, although I did have a little play with the Lindas brand, they're very pigmented too. We're going to be using some watercolor paints, and these ones I picked up on my trip to China when I was visiting my son. A few watercolor pencils never goes astray. But remember, you don't have to use these brands or these types. We're definitely doing some jelly printing that goes without saying. So I really hope you've got yourself a gel plate and we're going to be having a little plate with some markers, some Posca pens, and even the great big fat one, which I absolutely loved. So like I said, you don't have to use all of these colors. All these particular paints, use what you have first and continue to build your art supply collection. Because in all of the classes, we'll be using all of these water based materials. So pull out all your art supplies, gather all your paints together, and let's get stuck into the first prong. 3. Treasured Timepiece: Week three. How very exciting. Now I really hope that you're traveling with me and journeying through the classes 12 and now three. Because each class is going to compound and build on the previous one. We're going to use some of the previous prints and colleges and even techniques. And then we're going to build more and more as the classes progress. So no jumping to the end, because really the journey is worth the progression of learning and growing and developing your creativity step by step with me. That's the fun of it, and that's how I've designed the classes this week. Mixed media mastery, collage unleashed. Doesn't that sound exciting? We're going to be using a lot of different mediums together, experimenting, exploring our creativity. Of course, it's going to be a lot of fun and I can't wait to see where we head and what we create Now, the first lesson is treasured time piece. And I'm thinking, seeing as we're starting a new week, let's start with a new technique. Something fun, something experimental. But the catch is, this particular technique does take a long time to create. There's a lot of patients involved, but the rewards are great. So we're going to be using the jelly plate and creating fabulous textured backgrounds and using the theme of time. We're going to be creating our collage as a treasured time piece. I can't wait, it's going to be so much fun. And this is a technique that you can explore in so many different ways. I think we're going to want to keep our prints and use them quite a few of the lessons. So let's jump into it and let's make our fabulous texted backgrounds. Right. I'm pretty excited about the first lesson. A week three. Yeah, here we go. Seeing as we're starting a new week, I'm pretty sure we need to experiment with a new technique. Look at my brand new, beautiful, amazingly clean gel plate, fresh out of the box. Now, if my plates are a little funky, it's because when you first get your gel plate, there seems to be a little bit of chemical on it. And it gets a little bit weird for the first few prints, but I'm not too worried. Now our theme is time. And I have this fabulous stencil time machine. I can't remember where I got it from because it's way too long ago. But I'm really keen to use it today. And I want to show you a new technique I've been playing with. Now remember, if you're going to use a stencil with writing on your prints, you need to turn it upside down so that when you pull the print, they're the right side up. Yes, I have done that the wrong way quite a few times. Stencil down, first going to create a fabulous time piece, our lesson today. And I'm really excited. Transparent red iron oxide, I want to just run over this stencil with this beautiful color. Now you have to do it a few times to get right into the stencil when you're doing it like this. But don't let that worry you, just roll backwards and forwards like this till you've got the whole stencil covered and you feel like there's enough paint on it. I'm using a fluid paint and it is transparent. I am going to have to run over it a few times to get it to go through the stencil. A full bodied paint is much better, I think for using this part. I wanted this color and I want it to dry fast and I wanted it to be thin, not to worry, just run it backwards and forwards like I'm doing. Have a look at all of the sections of the stencil to make sure you've got the paint in it and then we're okay. It doesn't have to be perfect. Anyway, we're creating art. There we go. Fabulous. I think that's fine. Right now. I'm going to pull the stencil off. Look how beautiful that looks. Then I'm just going to do a touch up with a baby white. Taking off the paint that I don't want on my print. Like the edges here, they look a bit rough. I'm just going to wipe that off with a baby white. Now, this particular technique is going to take a long time, which I think is really relevant for our fabulous theme. First of all, we have to let this stencil dry before we go on to the next step. Each layer that we put on the gel plate, they all have to dry in between. Yes, this is quite a lengthy process, but a lot of fun, very experimental and I'm so excited to be playing with this with you today. Alpine. This time we have all the time in the world. What does it matter? We've got to let this stencil dry and then we're going to start with the next layer right now, make sure your stencil is perfectly dry before you move on. Now I'm using an unbleached titanium. This is a heavy body or a full body paint. I like to put this one on first, but then I want to put some layers of the transparent colors, because the way you can layer them on top of each other looks amazing. Now, this is an opaque color, so that blocks everything else that you put on top of it. Remember, when you're jelly printing, what you put down first is what's going to come up in the end on top. You got to think about that Right now, my plate is going to beat up a lot easier than your plate because it's absolutely brand new. Just took it out of the box. Fabulous packaging. This is not going to be hard to get this to happen. Yours, if your plate is older, will require a little bit more nudging. But what we're going to do is spray it with water. Just a nice little water spray, and see how the plate is now dispersing or beating up on the plate because of the water. That's how we're going to create our texture. I actually have to not overspray it because it's going to really come apart very easily. But if you've got an older plate, you might need to give it more spray and even nudge it perhaps with a tissue to get it to move faster or more. This paint layer is opaque. It's going to cover up thick background as you can see here. It's gone back to the bare plate and that's where you're going to see the next layer or the transparent colors that we add. It's a matter of thinking about how much do you want that first layer on there? How much do you want to block an opaque layer and how much you might want to build up those transparent layers? It's really fun, It's very experimental. Allow yourself to play and see what happens. Sometimes it looks, oh my gosh, incredible. You can never reproduce it. We're going to do a one pull monoprint and see how fabulous that becomes. But sometimes it doesn't go exactly how you want. Because yes, it is a little experimental. However, it's a whole lot of fun. And I'm going to be pulling this print onto wet strength tissue. That paper will make fabulous collage anyway. If it doesn't work out exactly how I want, we rip it up and make collage. It's going into my art journal. It's the first lesson of week three. Really? We've got nothing to lose. I'm loving the way it's created that pattern. I'm not putting on any more spray because I think there's enough space there for the next layer to come through and the next color to be shown. Yes, now we have to wait for this to dry completely before we put anything else on. It all takes time and I think that's relevant for today's theme. The paints almost dry, but it's still wet in a few areas. Sometimes I like to touch it with the tissue, take the blobs of water off, and it just creates another pattern. Sometimes I'm more impatient. Now at this stage, I like to put a spray of the zinc gold mine because we're back to the bare gel plate in some sections. When you pull the print and flip it over, you're going to see the beautiful gold mine sparkling on the top. That's what I personally absolutely love. I'm going to spray some of the gold mine trying to get it in the areas where there's blank gel plate exposed. And we'll see how we go. You'll just see spots of it in the final print. And it does look really beautiful. Love, it can't live without it. Got to have me a bit of bling. Yes. Now we wait for this to dry. Right when that layer is dry enough, I'm going to put some nickel gold and a little Quinacridone violet. Now both these colors are transparent. We're building up these beautiful layers of transparent colors. And then when we've created our fabulous layers, we're going to pull the final print. Now I've put a little bit of those colors in the different sections just for fun, because I think it will look really cool. We'll just have to wait and see if my idea actually works. Again, we can have a little spritzer of some water. See how straight away it creates that space on the plate so that the next layer of color we put on, you'll be able to see it. I like to spray less and less each time so that you're getting this build up of different sections on the plate of the different colors. That's looking great. That's enough. Let this dry and then we'll put another coat on. Now, if your layers are thin, it shouldn't take too long for them to dry. That's pretty dry, It's a pretty nice thin layer. This time I'm going to put some permanent violet dark or maybe some of the Quinacridone violet. I'm just going to put some on the plate, mix it around, and we'll see how we go. We won't really know until I pull the print. If my brilliant idea has worked as well as I would like, we shall just wait and see. Now, I'm going to leave this to dry. See how you're feeling, the time element on it, but look how beautiful that looks. That looks really good. It's still coming through with the transparent colors and there's still a little bit of a gap there on the plate. If I give that a little spray, then I think I might put one more color on it to actually pull the print. I'm just going to add a iridescent bronze fine that will cover any of the areas that haven't been covered by the beautiful, transparent layers. Of course, then we're going to have to wait very patiently for it to dry completely before we attempt to pull the print. Because it's got so many layers on, you really want to wait until it's dry before you pull up that print. I know it's all about the time. 4. Finishing Project 15: Right. So I've left the print for a few hours. It feels like it's probably dry to me and I can't wait longer. So now for the big reveal, now this is wet strength tissue, but you probably will need to be a little gentles. Looking good, it's coming off nice. Yes, it is. Looking beautiful, absolutely fabulous. Look at that is just glorious, Loving the colors. Now you can see all the speckled areas from spraying on the gold mine and also from the mist of the water bottle spray breaking up the paint. Now that's the first layer with the stencil that's looking glorious then. This was the unbleached titanium of the second layer. I did. And then when I broke that apart with the water, it created the space on the plate for the other layers to be put on. I'm pretty happy with that. That's pretty beautiful. A team, it's a fun technique, but it does take a fair amount of time because of just the drying, but it suits our time theme. I'm pretty happy with that. I'm going to pull out my art journal, put it with some other papers, and I'm pretty happy with how that's turned out. Now remember, it's very experimental. You do have to test and try a few ideas and a few colors don't get too distressed if the first time it doesn't work out exactly how you want because you can use it for closed paper anyway. Right. I'm continuing in my fabulous little art journal to 20 centimeter one square and I absolutely love it. These were the last lessons of the week two class, making beautiful miniature collages. I absolutely love that class. I think this class was my favorite out of the week two of all of those lessons. I don't know, man, I just really enjoyed making them. Pushing on to this week and our first lesson. Now I'm loving my print. I think it turned out really well. It really is a whole lot of fun. It's very experimental. It does take a lot of time. And I actually didn't mind it because I was doing quite a few projects at once. I was trying some other colors. This is the exact same process of layering the different, beautiful, transparent colors and spraying them with water. You can see all of the glorious texture. I loved it. I was trying some different colors and some elements, and I think this one worked really well. This is also another one, exactly the same process, but if you look at this one, it doesn't have the same kind of tiny spray elements like this one did. And I think it's because I got impatient and I rolled one of the colors before this layer was dry and it smudged it more together. Can you see the difference in the textures? I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. It looks fabulous and it's a great background, similar colors, the warm tones, the bronze. It's just all a little more smudged in than this one has got more clearer spray marks on it. And I like this one better, but this does make great textured background, it's very experimental. Each time you do it, you're going to create different marks, different textures. It's really a lot of fun. I do like this one. I like the spray element on it. Think I'll use this one for this side. I'm going to stick this one down just as it is. Trim it off the top. It just fits my clock face on. That's it. I'm not adding anything to it because I want to remember the print. I want to remember how I did it and that's what the fabulous classes for and the art journal. Because I can look back down the track maybe a year's time and go, oh yeah, I loved making that print. Now how did I do it? That's what I love about the art journal. You get to keep your artworks in one place where you can find them again, and it will help you to remember how you created different things. Now with this one, I think I'm going to add a focal point. I use one of the leftovers from last week's lesson that I loved so much. I have one of these tiny little miniatures leftover. Now remember what I said that the classes are going to compound. Each one is going to continue on from the last one and we're going to keep all our prints and our collages and our bits of paper, our found objects from last week. And we might use them again in this class. Make sure you're keeping all your bits and pieces together where you can find them, because you just might want them for one of these lessons. I'm loving this, the colors work perfect. I think I might put one of my Found objects, trinkets that I had pulled together from the last class, look at that. That is just beautiful, treasured time piece. I mean, I'm even in theme, I'm going to put that in the middle that I'm loving it. I might even put some of the beat, beautiful, textured, white behind it. Maybe I'll think about it and that's going down there, loving my treasured timepiece theme. It's just been so much fun. I love the tactile texture quality of these prints and this application of collage. I know, I just love it. So I've pulled out some of the beautiful textured so paper, this one is called tiny poca dots because I just feel that my beautiful focal point centerpiece just needs to be highlighted a little bit separated from the background. And I found this piece in my scrap bag. So I'm like, heck yes, that looks fabulous. I love the paper, I love the texture, and I even love the shape. That's the thing about your scrap bags, when you keep all your bits and pieces together where you can find them, then rummaging through them can be absolutely, so much fun. Look at that. I like the way it's shaped like that. It just frames my focal point a little, separates it a small bit from the background, and makes it more of an absolute feature. That's going to work very well. I just love it when you pull out a random shape like that and it works. It's so fun. I'm putting a little PVA on this piece because it is quite stiff. It's the watercolor paper and it's got a few layers of the collage on it. It's quite a thick piece. We'll just put a bit of PVA around the edge of that, smudge it over a little. I might even spread it out. I think that's just going to hold it better. It's also going to grab faster and stick straight down, which we like. Right. I'm thinking about the, I really like the shape of that background piece. That was a very cool score. I don't mind if the edge pops up a little long as it gets a good hold on, it will be okay, then I'm going to finish it off with my little time piece in the center. Oh baby, look, I'm beautiful. Good dollop of V on that just as well. Everything dries clear because I do manage to get it everywhere. I'm loving it, looks great. I'm really happy with my pages. 5. Nature's Harmony: Day 16, Nature's Harmony. We're going to be creating a fabulous mixed media collage using the theme of nature, incorporating the elements of twigs or leaves or flowers into your collage, and using a mixed medium experimental palette of water colors and inks and acrylic paints. What are we going to create? We want to capture the vibrant textures and colors of the natural world. It's going to be a lot of fun, remember, anything's possible. So don't be afraid to really experiment and to try some new techniques and play with some different mediums, right? Let's see what we get up to with this one, right? So we're going to do a few mixed media techniques in this lesson and it's going to be a lot of fun. Of course, it's always gota be fun. Now, I'm personally inspired by these beautiful pieces of fabric. These actually came out of a wallpaper book, you know, like the sample books where they have all the wallpapers. Well, it had wallpaper like this and then a piece of fabric, I know, right? I've already used up all the wallpaper and now I've got the fabric left. But what I like is the shape of these leaves and the simplicity. I like the abstract quality of it. Of course, I love the colors. I love the metallic on it. I'm going to start by jelly printing some leaf shapes and see if I can create something in the prints that inspires me, like these particular pieces of fabric. I really liked them. I went for a walk to the beach, picked up some leaves along the way. They're nice and shiny. I don't know how flat I'm going to be able to get them. That's my only problem. Give it a go. It's a whole lot of fun. We're going to start with this. Now if you don't want to do jelly printing, you don't have to. I'm going to come up with some other ideas as well, of course, because we're all about developing our creativity in so many different ways. Look at this one. Yeah, I like this one. All right. That one might work. It might sit a bit flatter, some of them aren't so flat. But Matt, we're going to give it a go anyway because I'm so inspired by the beautiful pieces of fabric which may or may not end up in my college. I'm going to start with some liquid text, muted violet on the plate. Yes, we're going to have to add some bronze or copper or something metallic as well. Look at this beautiful color. I absolutely love it. I've got my new nine by 12 plate. I'm thinking, which one can I actually get to sit flat is the biggest challenge I might try. This one that could sit flat, maybe not. Oh man, it's not going to be easy. I could just pull some leaves off, then they'll sit flat. But I really liked the stem. Oh, well we'll give this a try and see how it looks. That's pretty fun. Yeah, I don't mind this idea. We'll put that on there. I'll squish that down. Actually, I'm going to use the Japanese rice paper to push it down because I'm going to take some multiple prints onto the paper and see what abstract design that could create. It's all very experimental. You've got to allow yourself to play, to try different ideas. It may or may not work. You may or may not even like what you're creating. But it is all part of the process because you will then come up with your next brilliant idea and think of something else and that will work. You've just got to get started, get moving head in a direction, and then pivot accordingly to what you like and don't like, right? So a good rub around everything with my Japanese rice paper. Let's see what that looks like. That's not too bad. Not too bad. Look at that. That's pretty cool. That's fun. We're going to take some more prints with this piece, of course. Then we have the beautiful ghost prints. They look pretty cool. I'm going to put them onto watercolor paper. Because then later on I'm going to want to splash some water color on them. That's going on, watercolor paper straight up. Let's see how much of that picked up. Hopefully it wasn't too dry. Oh, baby, that looks beautiful. Look at that. Not too bad for our first print. This is going to be a lot of fun. Okay. Well, I haven't cleaned anything. We're just moving straight along. I'm going to go with some iridescent bronze. Fine. I think I might just give my Breyer a bit of a wipe. It's nice and clean for my bronze. And then I'm pretty much going to do the same thing. Do I want to use the same leaves or should we put some clean leaves down? I think I might do both. Think I might use the grubby leaves and put a few clean ones down as well. I like this one. This one was pretty cool. Let's put that one there again and we'll push that down. We'll put this one down here. Maybe we'll pick out some clean leaves as well. Oops, a little bit of dirt on the plate. A little bit of texture, It'll be all right. Pick out a few of those leaves, maybe some bigger ones, and they look pretty nice, right? That's that. Now I'm going to use the same piece of paper to take the second print, just because I want to see what it's going to look like. The ghost areas are going to be in different places. The second print is going to cover some of the first print, but the leaves will be in slightly different places. Really interesting. You don't know, right, until you try. Just make sure you've got good contact with your paint. Pushing it all the way around. Let's see what that did. Oh, that's just so much fun. See the different shapes and the patterns from where it's covered. The second print, right? Pull off my leaves. I'm thinking we'll use some wet strength tissue. Then we'll have a variety of papers that we can play with for the collage. I always like having a variety of papers call the prints Looks right. Let's have a look and see how this print come out all year. Baby, little bit of bronze, little bit of violet, and it's looking beautiful. I'm going to use my same print again for the third time. I think it's developing pretty nice love all of the abstract marks that it makes by doing this on the print. And I like the overlap of color and shape. That's what we love about jelly printing. You never quite know till you pull up that paper how well your print is going to work. But it's okay to experiment because we're also going to be using these papers to make collage. They're going to get ripped up anyway, so you don't have to stress because some section of it will work for you. Collage. I just know it. Oh, look at that, Look at that, that's pretty fun. Look how those colors of interact. I really like that. Right? So my beautiful pain gray leaves. I think I'm just going to pull straight onto the other wet strength tissue that I was using and add it to the page. That's this one that I pulled the print with previously. I'm going to add oh, man, didn't line it up too straight. Those leaves on top of that print. Oh yeah, baby. That adds another layer onto this print. That looks fabulous. I'm liking the way this pattern is working with a couple of stems and then a whole heap of extra leaves. That seems to be working well. I'm going to use the watercolor paper to push my leaves down. I don't know that it's going to be soft enough to get around the leaves. I don't think it will. But I want to then be able to splash it with some water colors or some inks with whatever I can actually print. Holding it still is a bit of a challenge. A we always up for a challenge and then I'm going to by it now. It's not holding exactly still, but I would really like to get as much paint on the paper as I can. A bit of a Brayer, it will be abstract. I love abstract. Anyway, let's see what we get. All right. What do we get? Not too bad. Not too bad, right? Let's pull them off now. I wonder what would happen if I put the print on now and filled up with all those areas. Yeah, well, let's try it. It's a really nice color. I'm going to try it now. I'm not good at lining things up straight. I didn't register it, and I didn't line it up hugely straight. But it is just a bit of fun. And it's watercolor paper, so I really do want to splash it with some inks. Let's see what it did. Oh man, that's not even too bad. Look at that. That's pretty. Okay. I think I'll put some bronze on and pull this. There's still quite a bit left on the plate. And it's in that beautiful, muted violet and pains gray. It's going to look fabulous. Wet strength tissue. Right? Let's see what was left on the plate and if we got it to actually pull up a loving my wet strength tissue that pulled off just beautiful. And look at the color of that, that is just glorious. 6. Creating Leaves & Flowers: Now, if you don't want to do jelly printing, you could try taking impression with some light molding paste. I've just got some watercolor paper, I'm thinking we put a layer of light molding paste on here. And then push the leaves on to make an impression or a print. And then we could put some of the watercolor paint or inks over the top. I did keep printing, of course, I wanted to try some more colors. I'm really enjoying the layering today. What about we use the light molding, paste and push in the leaves like this to take an impression. Then we can color that once it's completely dry. These ones are clean leaves. This one is one of my grubby leaves, but that's okay. You just want to sit it in the light molding, paste so that it takes a print then you pull it off again. Yeah, that wasn't very impressive. Now that one's a little bit better. It will take a bit of a leaf print depending on how thick you put your molding paste. I don't mind that shape. I'm going to do it again up here. I put it a bit thicker in some areas so that would take more of an impression. Because it's light molding, paste, it won't be too heavy on your page. That one seems to be working okay. I think we might just keep repeating it. Then we let everything dry and let's have a look and reassess the prints. Some of them need to have another layer of some watercolor paint or some acrylic inks. I think I'll pull out both. I might even pull out some of the spray inks. Yeah, that shapes working better. I'm going to go over these ones, have a little play, have a little experiment, and see what you create. It really is a whole lot of fun. Remember we're making collage paper so it doesn't have to be perfect. Yeah, I'm liking that one. That one's okay. That's pretty much like inspired material, don't you think? Yeah, pretty similar shapes. Even just awesome, right? I've pulled out some of my water colors and some acrylic inks and some springs. This beautiful print needs a little touch up of some more color and texture. What am I going to start with? Maybe some transparent bird Siena. My idea is to sprinkle it on and then spray it with the water. It just creates that beautiful textured pattern that you get from the water spray. I'm going to put on some rich copper as well. Let's see how these two beautiful colors respond. Not sure how much I'm going to want until I start to play with it. Now there's a few of my prints that I'm going to do this too, depending on how many layers of the jelly print they had on them. This one has got a lot of open space, so I can really play around with it now. Of course, wherever you put the water, the inks will run if you want, color puts water, otherwise just spray like a crazy person. And you can't, of course, get a brush and push it around and help it to move to where you want the color. I think I want the color around these beautiful shapes. Maybe some more of the bronze or so. Put some in here and then just move it around with the brush. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, it's going to look glorious. My biggest problem is allowing the white paper to remain go, tend to cover everything. But that's looking pretty good. I'm pretty happy with that. I'll pick up the next one which is sitting patiently on the floor. With this one, I just need to fill in some of the white spaces and I'm going to use water color for that. This is on the Japanese rice paper, so it soaks in really nicely a little bit of color to fill in the abstract shapes and it's going to look fabulous. I just love the way the multiple layers of these jelly prints created such fabulous abstract designs. It really is so much fun. Look at that. What do you think? I think it looks great. This one could definitely do with a little more color, a little more spice. What about we add some color to the leaves? Yes, that looks fabulous. A little bit of water color right over the top of the metallic copper. Don't get too fussy about coloring them in, just give them a bit of color, a little jujing. But you don't want to be trying to make them perfect Anyway, they look really good as a print and scratchy like that. Well, I think so anyway, I'm liking the white lines around them and the texture that's created from the process. We don't really want to lose all of that nice jelly print application. Just a bit of color. A little something, I might even drop in, perhaps some copper, onto them, seeing as they're nice and wet. Now a little drop of the acrylic ink on them and let that spread out. Water colors do have a mind of their own. It'll be fun to see how that responds. I might even splash a little on the background just to mess it up a bit. Now, it could all go haywire. I'm not too worried because I don't want it so precise. Anyway, it's looking a bit neat. Looking a bit neat and tidy. So I'm going to give it a spray. Oh yeah. Baby, mess it up a little so it's more expressionistic. Oh, that's just fun. Look how cool that looks. A bit of water color, a bit of acrylic ink, baby wear away. Now here's the fabulous print with the molding paste texture. That's pretty cool. It's lovely and dry. Look how well the light molding paste takes the water color. I reckon that's pretty good. You can see all the beautiful textures of the molding paste in the leaf shapes. Man, that was so much fun. It's worked really well. Now again, don't get too serious with it. Making everything perfectly shaped, allow yourself to play and to just create. Maybe you might want to outline your leaf shapes, Maybe you don't want to because the texture is going to be there anyway. You don't have to fully surround them in color. You can just paint some of the shapes or you can just add some highlights to the shapes, or you can go around them, if that's what you prefer. It's all about what you want to create. You're really not going to know until you start putting some paint on and seeing how you feel about it. I'm not going to fully cover these shapes entirely and paint, but I am probably going to spray on some inks and I might drop in some more of the acrylic ones as well. This water color is going on really easy. I'm so loving this texture. Maybe some iridescent rose gold. Doesn't that sound beautiful? I'm thinking. So I'm going to put some on these shapes here. You might even get a little adventurous and put a few splatters on. Yeah. Baby, look at that, that's what I'm talking about. Lots of texture. I think my leaves have turned into beautiful flowers, don't you think? Now, I'm just filling in some of the space of the background with the water color. The colors are glorious. Then I think I'm going to give it a spray, one of my spray inks and give it a bit of a bling. 7. Finishing Project 16: Right here are all of my beautiful prints. I had so much fun with this exercise. That was really good. This is the first one with the print of the leaves with some acrylic ink on it and a little splash, you can see on the metallic sprays I like to put on everything. This one looks really cool too. I really like this one. And this one, I added some watercolor pencils around the shape of the leaves to give it a bit more definition. I'm liking that it's got a really expressionistic style to it. This one is one of the first prints that I took. I did go a little crazy with the inc in gold. You can see all of the speckles on this one. This one turned out beautiful too. I love it. I really enjoyed creating the layers on this one. I'm going to play around with this technique again, because I think it was a lot of fun creating the different layers with the leaves. It was just really good. I liked the abstract quality of it, and I did it again in another color scheme. I think it has a lot of potential for lots of fun. Now, this one here, I took the print of the leaves and then sprayed the zinc, the gold on it. And then I left it, you know, like we did in the first lesson, how you leave the lays to dry in between adding more paint. That's what I did with this one. Put the leaves on, first sprayed it with the Ey. Zinc waited for it to dry and then rolled another color over it and eventually pulled the print. I think that's a lot of fun and it has a lot of potential for further development with that idea. This one I did like that as well. I put the leaves on. I then left them, let it dry, sprayed it with the zinc spray. You can see the spray, some of the copper spray as well, I put on there and then I rolled on another color, let it dry, and then I pulled the print. I'm really liking it, it's got a real painterly application. I then went around the shapes with a watercolor pencil that worked very well. It's very expressive and to me now, it looks more like flowers than leaves. And that's kind of fun. I think that's because of the color of them. I think that's what makes it more flower like. And probably the shape, look at the texture. I absolutely love the texture of spraying those inks on letting it dry and then adding color and pulling the print. I love the way we can keep adding the techniques into our tool belt of creativity and we can feed them into other lessons. This is so much fun. I love making this class makes me happy. Now I do have some that I did get a little carried away. Yes, that's too much. I kept painting it and then I sprayed it and I'm like, yeah, that's too much. But this one is right over the edge, baby and screaming on down the other side. This is the light molding paste. I took the print with the leaves. I then got really carried away throwing the color on. Then when it was almost dry, I added watercolor crown around the shapes. But yeah, that's too much. I mean, it's a bit intense. Although I could probably cut out some of these shapes and add them for collage. It'll get used for something. But definitely this one is my favorite. I love this style of the texture. I love the expressive quality. I think the watercolor pencil works really well. And I like this one as well, And I think I like this one. I'm going to pull out my art journal and put my favorite prints into it. And it's been a whole lot of fun, right? So these are the three that I like the best. Now what I love about using the art journal for this class is I can put my print in it, even if it's sections of them. And it can remind me of the techniques that we did. And I can come back to it another day. I know where they'll be, I know where to find them. Because some of these techniques I'd really like to develop, further experiment with. I really like the multiple layers like this one. Like using this technique again, but with the leaves. That was really cool. I really enjoyed that. I love using the art journal because it becomes this visual diary, not of perfect art works, but of ideas and valuable experiments that you can look at down the track and go, oh yeah, I really like the way I did this or that. I'm going to try it again and I'm going to try it this way or that way. I think that's really valuable, right? So we'll cut the section off the bottom and I'm just going to glue. Whole page on because I really like it the best. I think the watercolor pencil worked better than I expected, and we did play with that in the first class when we were doing our drawing Fun lesson. You need to make sure you're pulling out all of your art supplies and using them each time. And building on the techniques and the classes and the lessons that you like the best. Yes. I'm going to put this one down and then I think I'm going to cut around some of the other one and put it on there as well. Right. The backgrounds are down. I think they look fabulous. I love these prints with so much fun making them. I'm going to cut some of this one. I think I like this section here, I might put it so it's on the edge like that. Maybe at the top here. And just cut around that section or down the bottom? Yeah. Top or bottom? Not really, but I think I'll just cut around it and start playing with it and see if I really do want it on my page. Sometimes you really don't know what you want until you try it and then it's either a yes or a no. What the heck was thinking? We'll see. We'll see. Now my first thought is to leave the edge like that, so I can put it against the edge of the page. But that may or may not be a good idea. I don't mind it. But I might like it that corner better. Yes, I think I like it there better and I might trim it back a little bit. It's more like that. And not taking up so much my beautiful print, but that's what I'm going to do. Give it a little trim and I think I'll put it up in that corner. All right. Let's see how that looks. Right. All stuff down. I really like this. I think it looks great. The colors match. Well, I love the shape of my leaves. I love the slight impression of the leaves underneath. But I think I might just add one more just to balance out the composition because it's all just top heavy there in the corner. Think I might cut this little one out here, perhaps add it just floating down on this side just so it gives it a little something on the bottom left corner. So the composition is a little more complete. I think that's it. I'll be done. Quite a nice shape. It's a beautiful color man loving it. Just loving it. What do you think? Just a floating leaf down there. Just to add some of that color. Bring that over. Yes, that's gorgeous. I love it. I'm very happy with today's lesson. I can't wait to get onto the next one. 8. Abstract Landscape: Day 17, Abstract Landscapes. Now we're going to be using the composition of a strata design, which is what appears in nature with land formation. It's layers upon layers. We're going to be using lots of textured layers and lots of beautiful colored strips of our collage. The landscape can be real, or imagined, or completely abstract, and the prompt is to use at least five different types of paper. Now of course, you can use more than five different types of paper, but the challenge is to use at least that many. Because we want to have a nice variety of textures, some different elements in our beautiful strata composition. And it just looks absolutely fabulous. Now the strata composition is really, really easy. It's one of my favorites because it's just simple layers of texture. So the beauty of collage is in what you use for those, the variety of the shapes and the different textures that you put together. Can't wait to see what you're going to create. It's going to be so much fun. And don't forget, you can pull in the jelly prints or the collage papers from the last few lessons or last week's lessons, because I'm sure you put them in a box, like I suggested. So pull them out, pick out your favorite colors and textures that you've made in the classes so far, and use them in your collage. That'd be a whole lot of fun, right? So abstract landscape, how very exciting strata compositions are so easy. It's just a matter of laying out some beautiful textures, different colors and patterns. And something interesting to make your collage look beautiful. I've been playing with this recently. I've been using the fabulous coso paper, the beautiful textured coso paper, the lacy stuff, very fibrous on the gel plate to pull a print. It has worked really, really well. In fact, it works a way better than I expected. It's a really easy process. Put down the paint, put down the textured paper, and pull the print. I absolutely love it. I have these ones here. They're beautiful. I love them. I love about it is the glorious line and fiber mark that it makes from the paper. It's incredible also. I love the fact that now I have these beautiful fibrous papers with a little bit of paint on them so I can use them in the collage as well. I really want to use these today, but I also have some other jelly prints that I've pulled and I have some other so textured, beautiful marble paper that I want to use. Also, I've got some prints from our previous classes using the leaves with the inks. I loved that class, I loved making these papers. So I think I'm going to have way too many. And of course, don't forget, I've got my glorious scrap bag with a whole heap more options as well. Of course, there's no way this is all going to fit in my art journal. So I'm going to have to decide what's most important. I think I want to start with these prints because I am so impacted by how beautiful this looks and I'm not sure if I like that side with the natural or the painted side. It both works and of course, I love these prints. I'm going to start by choosing somehow which, which one of these I love the best. I love the particular texture of that one, the way you can see through it. So. Hmm, maybe I'll go with these two. Of course, I have to do the one with the bronze on it because it's glorious. Now, I've got to stick the whole page on. Oh man, that's not helping. I think I'll trim this one down and cut some of that edge off there, because I like this section of both those. So I might trim that down then I've got the rest of that space to put something. This one, I'm sure it's so beautiful. I could just stick the whole thing on. I'm definitely going to use some of this, not sure which side, because it all looks beautiful and I just absolutely love this texture. Now of course, my abstract landscapes are definitely going to be abstract because I love abstract. But if you want to do something more representational or more realistic, you just go on and do that baby. You might want to the area where you're living or the area that you like or you might have a beautiful photograph of something that's inspiring you. You just take the prompt of an abstract landscape and go crazy run with it however you like. Now in the prompt, I also added the challenge of using five different papers. Yeah, I know I just stuck the whole thing down. Now I'm going to think of four more papers to add to it. Oh man, That wasn't very clever, was it? Maybe I should have broken that up a little. I think I'm going to tear this one. I don't want it to be such a hard, straight line. Then I could put something else underneath it. Yes. Seeing as. Hello, I've got to do some different papers. The fun of creating a challenge, right? I'm liking that. What shall I put underneath it? Def about one of the beautiful coso marble papers that could work. Could put that down and put that across there. That's a little rather beautiful glamorous. That's a possibility. Or I could put some of the beautiful print here too close a color. I like that contrasting color. Or I could use this one. That could work too. Which one do we want, the black or the lighter color? We might start with the lighter color because knowing me, I'm going to get dramatic really fast. I could put some black over the top. Yes, let's do that. All right. The plans working, I'm definitely going to use some of this one on this side. I just haven't decided which way I like it best because I like it both ways. Oh man. Now I like to create collage in an intuitive fashion. Which means I'm basically making it up as I go along. And if I don't like something, I'll change it or rearrange it, or I'll add more pieces to it or add paint to it, or stencils or anything until I'm happy. It also means that once you've stuck something down, if you then decide you want something under it, you've got to pull it up while the map medium is still wet. I have done quite a few times, right. I'm liking that they're beautiful colors. And rummaging through my scrap bag, I've pulled out a piece of this one now. This is my poem, script stencil. And I've printed it onto white tissue with a bronze. It usually goes quite transparent on the white tissue. I'm going to put this on because I'll still see the beautiful texture underneath because I don't want to cover up my beautiful texture. And what I love about that particular jelly print, I've got to add more layers and more interest to it without actually completely covering everything up. That's going to be my challenge. Maybe I won't add so much. Okay, we'll just add a little piece of it, but I really like it. Right. I'll put that somewhere here and then I just will decide what's going to go on next. See how the tissue goes quite transparent once you put it on the map medium. Yeah, I like that. Just gives me a little bit of the bronze texture in the script writing. Now, I think I'll put this piece over here because I've decided I like it that way. That just looks so fiberous. I just love it. Now, what about add some more of my script? Writing from the stamp doesn't have to go the right way. I don't think so. Why does it have to go up the right way? No, I'm not going to put it up the right way. I'm going to put it however I would like. I'm liking it on here, going across like that. It's looking all very mountainous. I didn't mean for that to happen, but it's definitely heading that way. It must be psychological when you think of landscape. What about if I add that onto there across there, See very mountainous. Might have to mess that up a little bit. Oh, what else have I got from my scrap bag? Maybe some of my crosses. Look how lovely that texture looks from the gel print. Yes, I'm thinking we need a few of these. How many? Where do we want them? I don't know, but that's a great piece to go back in my scrap bag. The colors work well. And I really like that kind of rugged, textural, old war look about the background print. Love my scrap bag. Perhaps some of this. Yes, that looks great. And this is how you do a strata composition. You just put layer upon layer until you're happy. You create different heights and thicknesses and length of your textured pieces. Just to make it a bit more interesting, I didn't mean for it to look like a mountain, but it does now. But when you're creating in a strata composition, it just lends itself to an abstract landscape form. I'm going to put that across there. Almost reaches to the edge. I might put another little bit on the end there, perhaps. Then we'll think about what I'm going to put on next. I don't want to add too much more because I really love these textured areas. Maybe I'll add some of this texture onto this side as well. Because I love these pieces, the painted or the not painted, either one will work really well. That piece is pretty nice, that is very textured. I think it will just mirror that beautiful texture there. I might do some of that. And then I'm going to find a little something for over here. I pulled out this jelly print. It's an image transfer. I love it looks very Moroccan, even though it's not. I'm going to put some of that onto this side here because I just think the colors work really well. But again, I don't want to cover up too much because I love the textures that I've got from those prints. Maybe a few little bits and pieces, but definitely it's not going to have too much more on it. Have I got five different papers? I'll have to make sure. But I do love where this is heading. I love how easy the composition is because you don't have to think too much or stress. It's just a matter of picking out your favorite textured pieces, putting a color scheme together, and deciding on whether you want them to be this big or this big or. And adding a few little highlights. Now, I think I'll have another rummage in my scrap bag. I need a something for maybe some book text. That could be good. Just a bit of something different. Different texture. Different type of paper. Yeah, I think that's going to work really well and just put a really thin strip along there just under the crosses. And then I think I'll definitely add some of this beautiful fibrous paper. Yeah, that's going to look beautiful. 9. Finishing Project 17: Maybe something like that and a little bit more. Perhaps, maybe I'll put the natural fiber there because it does dissolve a lot more and then you'll see more of my beautiful background. That sounds like a plan stand, right? What are we going to do with this now? I don't want to cover up too much, but I really do love the colors and the textures of these shapes. It's just going to be a matter of trying an idea and if it doesn't work, then I'll just change my mind. Or maybe even the bigger side. I know I don't want to lose my beautiful texture there, but I really want to add this to the page. Perhaps I'll cut around them some more and see how that looks. I decided on the bigger piece and I just had to have it. It was so beautiful. I'm putting it on this side of the page. Even though I've covered up some of my textured paper that I love so much, I think I'll add some more over the top. Why not? Right. That's what we do, we just keep adding layers. If we cover something up, we can add again some more on top and just keep working on it until you're happy. I'm loving those shapes. That was a really fun image transfer. I think the colors are beautiful. I'm just in the mood today for all of this glorious texture. I really love texture. I've pulled this out of my scrap bag, so I think I'm going to add it a bit here on the side, maybe not that much. That's the thing about doing something with all of the beautiful layers of textures and colors. You don't need too much of anything. So scrap bags are absolutely perfect for this project. Just need little pieces of beautiful papers, fabulous textures and glorious colors. I mean, what else could you possibly need? Now, this white does go a little transparent when it's glued on. And that's what I'm hoping, because I want to see these beautiful rich colors underneath. What about some black? What about if I added some black of the beautiful textured lacy paper? That could be really quite dramatic and stunning? I'm thinking just perhaps a little piece somewhere up there. Then I might add some more of those crosses in. Maybe I could add them. Yes, maybe maybe I could add them on top of these shapes. That's a little fun. We could just rip them off like that and stick them on there. They're not perfect and I really like that. They've got very rugged edges. They're a little wonky in shape. And that really Yes, is working. It brings that black down and it connects with that page. I'm doing it. Jars, doing it. I think I'll just do three. That one's right on the edge. Those three there, I might give that a bit of a spray of some bronze shimmer. So it's not so strong. White because everything else is a little more muted. Do I want the black Know now now that I've got those down there, maybe I just want to stick with this color. What do you think? The black or the cream? Oh man. What about a little bit of the black? What about just a tiny bit of the black? What do you think? It's too heavy, isn't it? All right, then we'll put a little bit of the cream texture paper on the edge like that because I didn't really want to cover up that much. Anyway, just a tiny bit on there. I'm thinking that looks rather glamorous. I think I'll leave it alone because I really like it just like this, so we'll see how it dries up. I'm going to add a little bit of spray onto that for a little bit of bling, and I think it's looking pretty good. Okay. My page is drying beautiful. I love it. I this as I began to tidy up, I just have to add a little bit more to my page even though I totally love it as it is a little bit of drama. I know you thought I could resist the urge, but no, I can't resist the urge. It has to be done just a little bit there. We, you know, we could add that black up there. Now that I added that there, what do you think you think? Just a little bit does look good? You got to admit a little bit of black does look. What about if we just add it that way, That way. I think just a little bit on there just to add a little bit of something. All right. I'm doing it. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. And then I'm going to let it dry. I'm going to back away from the page. You know, by the time we finished this class, my art journal has no chance of closing. Just so you know, if yours gets a bit thick like that, don't worry about it. Because we have to create these beautiful masterpieces that were inspired by at the time. Oh. That we're making them. And how can we let a silly thing like not being able to shut the book discourage us? No, it can't. I think there's quite a narrative in my college today. There's quite a story going on and it just keeps going. It doesn't seem to want to stop. I just have to add this piece to connect those two areas. I've enjoyed making this so much. I do think it's a bit of a story, don't you? Think so. What does the story say? Well, yes, that's, I just couldn't help myself. I had to add the bling. This is a bronze shimmer is zinc spray. I've got it in this little cheap dollar store bottle because the other one clogged up. I know, so annoying. Anyway, a little bit of bronze shimmer looks absolutely beautiful and it's finished off the collage. Just nuts. So what do you think about my beautiful abstract landscape? It doesn't even look so abstract. Now it looks like we've got a beautiful building on the right. It might even be a church or a chapel. Actually, it's an image transfer from Venice, so it is something glamorous. Then we've got the rolling hills and the land off in the distance to the left. I turned out a lot more representational than I had intended, but I had a lot of fun. The colors and textures are beautiful. And it all started with the inspiration of jelly printing that fabulous lace paper. What are you going to start with? What's your inspiration and where's it going to take you? What story are you going to be creating today? 10. Tissue Paper Watercolour: Day 18 tissue paper, water color. I love this technique. It's one of my absolute favorite ways of creating collage paper. And there are two ways that we can approach this particular technique. You can put the white tissue onto your page and drop the water colors or inks onto the page actually already stuck down. Or you can have the tissue paper separate and put the water colors or the acrylic inks onto that and then glue them onto your collage. It does create different varieties of looks and the patterns also look a little different. So I'm going to explore both of these different styles of this particular technique and you can see what you like more. Perhaps you could even experiment with both of the different ways of approaching this texture and then you'll know what you like best. I find creating the tissue separately, I can use bigger sheets and cover my entire space in my studio. That really works for me, but sometimes you just want to work small and intimate within your art journal. So that's really fun too. Let's have a play. Let's really experiment and explore this particular technique. Because there's so many options. There's not one way for this technique, there's no right or wrong. There's just some great ways to experiment with the techniques and a whole lot of fun in creating these different textures, right? So let's jump in and let's see what we can create, right? So we're going to use both techniques for creating our fabulous watercolor collar. Now I've just got recycled ordinary tissue from the dollar store. These ones are all crinkled because, yes, I used them for packing because I moved house. But you can get dollar store tissue, which is nice and flat and crinkle it actually to create this beautiful texture, you can of course, use any other tissue. This one feels soft. They do feel different depending on where they've come from. This one's a lot harder and more crinkly. It really doesn't matter. Just use what you have. I think that's the point. Use what what you've got lying around at home or what you've got from paper packaging, Christmas or leftover. Give it a bit of a crinkle up like that because we are creating a bit of a watercolor effect. So you don't want it to be all like stiff and boring. One side of my art journal, I'm going to glue the tissue down. And then we're going to add the watery effects. And this side I'm going to add the paper that we actually create on a different piece of plastic. That's the plan. Let's start with this side, because it's nice and flat and I'm just going to glue some of these pieces of tissue down with the mat medium that I also use for collars, nice and easy. Then we're going to splash it with some inks. Now, you can use acrylic inks, you can use water color. I'm probably going to pull out some spray inks. We're going to move it around with some water and just get a bit of a flow happening. So use what you have. Pull out what you've got in your drawers. You definitely don't have to rush out and get anything extra for this lesson and have a bit of fun, see, look at that crinkles at all. That's what we want. Just put the paper down. Don't think about it too much. Don't stress about it at all. Put it down with the mat medium, see where it falls. And then when it dries, we're going to throw some acrylic inks on it. We probably don't even have to wait for it to dry, but I also want to put some on another piece of plastic. I think we're going to move it aside and do that. See how I'm getting a bit of a texture in there. That's really fun. That's going to look great when we put the inks on. Now you can overlap the tissue, you can put it on in layers top of itself. It just creates more texture. Crinkle it up, add some three D effects to it, have a bit of fun, and see how you go. You really can't get it wrong, and it's a little experimental. I always find experimental processes to be a lot of fun. Okay, one more piece. I'm just going to add a little bit of extra texture on it so it gives something for the inks to run into and create those beautiful watercolor effects. Then we're going to pull out a piece of plastic so we can create more beautiful watercolor. Tissue. Right. Okay. This is what I've got here, L shaped pockets. It's basically just plastic file folders, warehouse, stationery. They are three size. I just love them because I split them apart. So I literally pull them apart. They come like this. I pull them apart. So I have a nice big flat plastic surface because what I like to do is put the tissue on here completely saturated with the inks and the water. Then it has to dry. It does take a fair amount of time to dry, especially if you're going to really give it a good saturation of water. I like to then be able to pick it up and move it off my desk and continue working on something else. It just makes it more portable and easy. Now, if I want to do really big sheets for a big project, I'll literally just cover up my entire workspace here in the studio. And I always put down a plastic tablecloth. You can put the tissue straight on a plastic tablecloth and do the same technique. You just won't be able to work on your desk for a day and sometimes two, depending on the weather. That's why I like to use the file folders. It just makes it more portable. Now, this is nice and crinkled. I like it crinkled because it just creates a lot more texture that always looks so beautiful. Now, what are you going to use? Of course, you can use water colors. You can use acrylics. You can put really any kind of paint on your tissue while it's still dry, especially if it's ordinary dollar store tissue. Once you start spraying it with water, you're really not going to be able to actually touch it or paint on it. So if you want to paint some color on your tissue, make sure you do it first before you start splashing around the water. I've just put on some halo blue gold. I love this color, it emanates a different pigment. Once you spray it with water, then I'm going to drop in some acrylic inks, which really is the fun part because then we get to splash everything around. Now, use what you have, pull some things out of your cupboard. You can always water down some acrylic paint, or if something's at the bottom of a bottle like this one. Even more fun because you fill it with water, you give it a good shake, and then you can use that on your tissue easy Pz and it brings out all of the rest of the pigments in the empty bottle. And you get to use it all up. Yeah. Right. I'm going with some blues and greens, creating some beautiful, watery colors. I'm taking the water right to the edge of the tissue, making sure it has a really good spray. You can also add some more, of course, but like I said, once you start spraying it, you're not really going to be able to do a lot of painting on your tissue because it will tear. If you have wet strength tissue or a different kind of tissue that's really strong, you can definitely keep painting it. But if it's ordinary dollar store tissue, you've got to be really careful with what you do with it once you start adding water. Now, I also have some spray in here that I'm going to add. You can add anything to your tissue. Look how fun that is. And it covers it up really fast. I love it. Already done. It's already covered in beautiful colors. You can, of course, move it around because it's on the plastic and let all that beautiful inks and colors run into the crevices of your tissue. Now, how easy is that? It's going to make fabulous, beautiful tissue once it's dried. I'm going to do a few more sheets on my glorious plastic file folders in some different colors to use in the colors. What colors are you going to use Some things out of your cupboard that you could really do with using up, because it's a great way to experiment. And definitely put in some water into the bottom of your bottles and use those up. So much fun, Have a little experiment with what you find works better for you on the tissue that's pretty cool, liking that color. Also, you won't be able to move it off your plastic until it's completely dry. It will take at least a day, sometimes two, usually two for me because I'm in New Zealand, and if the weather is not so great, it will definitely take a few days. Don't move it off your plastic or try to get it off your work space until it's completely dry. Otherwise, it will just tear. That's why I like putting it on the file folders because at least I can move that onto the floor and still be able to work in my space. I really love emptying out ink bottles. You can also do it with the fluid paint, the golden fluid paint. You can empty them out onto the tissue. It's so incredibly satisfying because you get all of that pigment, all of that money that you spend on those paints. You get to put it onto beautiful tissue and make fabulous collage paper, have a play, have an experiment. The more water you put on, of course, the more it's going to run. And it creates those beautiful textures and patterns. If it's not running or moving, spray some more water on it and that will get it going. You spray it right to the edge. All of the color will go to the edge. But don't let it tip over your table onto the floor because that's where you'll find all of your ink. The water will definitely flow to the lowest level. Just be mindful of how contained you have the tissue because yes, I have had it flowing onto the floor before. Right now. This page is not exactly dry, but it's nearly dry. It's enough. I'm going to put beautiful blue colors over this side from the watercolor paper that I just created, which is now drying nicely on the floor. I'm thinking this side, let's do something beautiful in the rich, glorious warm tones that was some magenta. Now, you don't have to use the same colors that I'm using. You definitely should just pull out whatever you have in your drawers. But if you do want to know what the colors are, I will have a list. In your material list. The list is there, not for you to rush out and buy everything, but just if you want to know what I'm using, it'll be on the list. 11. Finishing Project 18: Right. What about those three beautiful colors? That one was an iridescent rose gold. These are the acrylic inks from liquid text. I love them because they're so beautifully pigmented. Now as I spray it with water in my little water bottle, it'll run into all those beautiful crevices of the tissue that I stuck down earlier. It may also run throughout my entire art journal, but that'll be all right. I'm going to give it a little push around with a brush just to get some more movement on the acrylic inks. And then I think I'll leave it just to dry and let it run into all of those beautiful textures. Look at the glorious rich colors. Don't you just love it a little bit more water? Get a little bit more movement going on. I think a little sprit of some bronze shimmer. And we'll let that layer dry. Yeah. Right. So how did your page dry up? Here's my fabulous art journal page. Look at drying up quite well, considering I drowned it in water. What do you think we think? I think it survive very well. I love all this texture. Now, there's so many things we can do with a page with that much beautiful color and texture. We could just scumble some paint over the top, pick up the ridges of that texture, and really enhance the pattern. We could put a stencil on it, we could add some more paint, we could create an image, oh man, there's so much we can do. And of course, if you put your fabulous tissue onto plastic like I did here, then you'll have even more options. I love these file folders because it always makes it easy to get the painted tissue off. Now don't forget, you don't want to try and remove it until it's completely dry or it will tear to pieces. Isn't this just glorious? I love both sides. What I love about the backside when you've created it on the plastic is the way it creates these incredible shapes. That's where the water pulls and sticks to the plastic and it's just absolutely fascinating the way it creates those marks. I'm not sure which side I even like the best. Every single piece that I do turns out completely different depending on whether I use acrylic paint or acrylic ink, or if I use a little bit of water or a lot of water, it all turns out so different every time. I absolutely love making the painted tissue. It's one of my favorite ways to create collage paper. I love how diverse the textures are. Look at the markings on this piece. They are completely different to the markings on this piece. That can be also because of the different tissue. It's all recycled tissue, but some tissues a little more plasticy, some tissues a little softer. Some absorbs it, some repels the ink more. I love it. It's so fascinating. Always makes me happy. This was another one in these colors that I created, and it looks different again. Now, there really is no limit to what you can create with this particular technique. Here are more pieces of tissue that I've created using the inks. I also absolutely love to use the bottom of bottles emptying out, especially the golden bottles, because they cost so much. I like to empty out very last remnants of the pigments and you can also really experiment with different color combinations. Look at this one, isn't that beautiful? I've put both the red colors are some turquoise onto those ones. They look fabulous, of course. It really is. It endless. What you can do, especially if you're using recycled tissue. It's not costing you very much. Look at these ones. These ones are glorious too. With a little bit of green and some pink through it. Absolutely beautiful. Have an experiment really play with the technique of putting the acrylic paint or ink, or water colors onto your tissue. I personally like it on the plastic sheet the best, because I can spray it more with water. I'm not so worried that it's going to wreck my art journal page. I can get more experimental with the colors. It comes off really easy on the file folders And it's a great technique to do when you don't feel like creating anything serious, but you want to be making something. I love it for collage paper, It's so nice and soft it goes in the art journal or on your substrate, or your canvas, or your paper really easy. Now I've just got to decide which. I'm going to use, what colors am I going to go with and what we're going to do with our page. I really like this. I like the way it's created these marks. I'm very tempted to go with this particular tissue on this side and using the backside because I think I like the shapes even more this time. I think I'll stick with these warm colors. Maybe baby, but I might put some of the other tissue on or even some of the other colored tissues. I'm really liking this one. I was experimenting with some of these pink tones and I threw in a bit of the green. It turned out a lot better than I even expected. Maybe I'll put some pieces of this. On this side, it looks very floral. Perhaps we need a flower type of stencil and create a shape in the middle that could be fun. This one's definitely got a watery look. I might stick that down first and then decide what I want to add to it. Really loving this particular mix of the pink with the green, It was really just the last minute using up some of my spray inks that I had and some of the iridescent inks And look at the color, it's just beautiful. I'm going to put it on top of this page here. And then definitely going to pull out a stencil because it's very floral to me. And I think we should maybe we'll draw around the shapes of the stencil. Not sure. I'll go and pull one out and we'll have a bit of a play and think about what we can do next with the page. It's looking beautiful. I love all the glorious texture and the colors are just fabulous, right? I gave the page some time to dry because it was covered in a little mat medium. I've pulled out this floral stencil with the beautiful flower pattern. What I'm going to do, draw around it with a Posca pen. I just want to add some beautiful flowers to the page. But I don't want to overwhelm the page, because I really like the beautiful color and the pattern of my fabulous watercolor tissue. And I don't want to take away from that, but I just want to add a little focal point to the page. I'm thinking perhaps this fine line in a beautiful gold of the Posca pen outlining this stencil could just add a little something without being too much. Well, that's the plan anyway, we'll see if it works. Of course, once I've got it outlined, if I don't like it or if it's not enough, I can always paint in the shapes. It's a little bit of trial and error. Have a little drawer on your page or add a stencil or some mark making and see what you think. You won't know sometimes until you actually do something if that's what you wanted or not. If it's not what you wanted and you don't like it, you can just change it, paint over it, or put something else on it. That's what I love about this mixed media application. We just keep working on it until we're happy. If we're not happy then we haven't finished. Now, you do have to wait until your page is dry if you put it on with a map medium, otherwise the pen may not right over the top. Right. Let's have a look and see what that did and see if we like it or not really. Yeah, it's not too bad. I don't mind it. I think I need some over here, but Okay. You think I can get it back on again in the same place? It just needs to be ish and just ish, I do like having the variety of some of the shapes filled in and some just with the outline. That looks pretty good. Yes, I do like that a lot better. Okay, that looks good. Now, what am I going to do to this page? I don't want to do too much because I just love that pattern. But I do want to add a few highlights to make it more water read. I think I'm just going to put some of the beautiful acrylic ink on and run it down the page. Let's get ourselves some paper towel because we know how this is going to go. Once I start splashing water, let's put it along here then. I'm thinking just a few drips down the page to just add to that beautiful, watery feel, just like that. Then if there's too much, you can wash it off and give it a wipe with a baby wipe that just highlights the beautiful watery feel. I'm loving it. I decided to add some white to the page because I really liked the way it looked over there. You see what I mean? You've just got to keep working on your page until you're happy with it. If you're not happy, try another idea until you do find what it is that you want it to look like. I like the fresh pop of white from that page, so I'm adding it to this page. And maybe just a little spritzer of some antique pearl, a beautiful little, beautiful texture, just to finish the page. Love it. I absolutely love this technique. I love creating these papers for college. They're just beautiful. They're one of a kind, unique, beautiful textured papers that you just can't reproduce. Again, I'm very happy with how my pages turned out. There's so many ways the pages could have gone. There's so many possibilities. I love that. It's really exciting. I have a whole heap more papers to add to my for the next time that I want to create some beautiful watercolor type effects. How's your pages going? What colors did you decide on? I can't wait to see what you've done. Make sure you post a picture and show me. I really want to know what you used, what colors you did, and how your collages turned out. 12. Blk Wht Collage: Day 19, black and white collage. Now this is going to be a whole lot of fun because I love the contrast of black and white. I think it's very striking and dynamic. And if you work your different papers and textures accordingly, it can look really quite astounding. So the question is, are you going to use realistic images in your black and white collage or are you going to do it completely abstract? What papers are you going to use? Are you going to use your own prints or will you pull in some other images that you have in black and white? I know, right? There's so many questions. There's so many ways to approach this particular prompt. It's very open. The prompt is, create a black and white case. It doesn't say what it has to be or what it has to look like or what you have to use. It's completely open, so it's quite broad and totally up to your own creativity and your own imagination. Mm, I think I'll probably do abstract. That's what I love the most, because I love putting the textured papers next to each other, especially with black and white, because you can really make some contrast. Or you could add some black and white images into your collage. I know there's so many options, you really can do whatever it is that your creativity is leading you to go with the flow, see where it leads you, and I really look forward to seeing what you create, black and white. That sounds like so much fun. And I thought I'd start by creating a couple of prints, doing mark making on the gel plate with some black and white Posca pens. Because, you know, we don't quite already have 300 prints. We can use, we need, we need some more, don't we? How about loosening up that creativity and getting going by creating some marks on the gel plate. Black Posca pen scribbling, some circle shapes. Oh, I got to love it. Let's see if we put the tissue straight on. If we can pull that off, or do we have to wait and add something to pull it off with? I don't know, but I'm going with this idea. Don't worry about the crinkles. We're just getting started. Let's get ourselves a little bit motivated, get the creativity flowing, and see what we can come up with. I love the simplicity of the line. Oh yes, Baby, look at that. Straight on the gel plate. Straight off with some tissue. Now, this tissue is archival tissue. Yeah. I don't know what that means either. I bought it hoping it would be stronger than the dollar store tissue which I think it is, that's quite helpful. There we go, Posca pen print straight off the gel plate. Now what I like about the idea of using the tissue with this kind of line is that it creates a really good background mark. How easy was that? That was, that was so easy. I might do some more and pull out some other types of paper and try some more ideas using these fabulous Posca pen, right? Well, there's still a bit of line there and that's okay. I've got this Posca pen which is a brush, kind of big fat thing. What's it going to do? Oh man. What's it not going to do? Look how cool this one is. I'm loving it. Yes. It's brand new. I just I just pulled it out of the packet. Look at that. It comes out really thick and painterly. Man, I am loving that. Absolutely loving it. What about we try it on some rice paper? This is some coso rice paper and it'll absorb all of those marks. I'm quite sure you'll suck it up. The paper. Let's see how that looks. Yes. I'm going to get covered in black today. For sure. For sure. Oh, that's really fun. Look how cool that looks. I'm loving that look at the marks. Such an incredible painterly effect. And it took like 2 seconds. All the dose print is pretty nice. I might add a little bit more to that. We could add some more to this and then pull the print again. Oh, that is really fun. You need to get one of these. I'll put it in your No, if you want to find out what it is. Oh man, that's just so fun. What about we pull that one on some tissue. Oops, Maybe the tissue was a bit thin. That's going to go everywhere, right? We might have to stick with the thicker paper, but man, that's fun. Have a look at that. That is just like painting it with a brush. So fun. Oh man, I'm loving this. I really didn't think it would work so good. It's coming out like crazy. It's just basically, we're painting on the plate, literally. It's such an easy tool. I'm loving it. Yes. Sure. We put that on. I've got some more rice paper. It sucks it up so beautifully I'll use the paper because then I won't get so covered in paint. But we know that I will get covered in paint. That is just fun look at that, easy lemon squeeze. What about if I put it on again? Okay, let's try it. Let's go that way. Because I'm using the rice paper. It just sucks it up because the paint so thick on the plate, it just goes, it tucks it all up. But look at the patterns I'm creating. That's really fun. It's always good to start with mark making because you can a little loosened up. You start creating prints, you get your creativity going, and it all makes fabulous collage paper. Even if you make a mess that looks beautiful, I love it, absolutely love it. I'm going to put some more dots on, look at my ghost print. I'm going to pull that with probably all. What about silver? Are we allowed silver in our black and white? I think we should be allowed silver. I am loving these dots. All right. I'm going to keep adding to this one because it looks fabulous. And then I'm going to let it dry and pull it with some silver. It's such a fabulous texture. I'm going to pull it with some golden silver fine. Hopefully all of that beautiful little marks will come up on the print because it's really beautiful. Put some of this painper on and let's see what this does. I love experimenting. I love mark making. I love just trying different ideas and seeing what works. If it doesn't work, it really doesn't matter because we're making collage. Anyway, we're going to tear it up, but you never know what you're going to find until you start. Let's see if the silver has pulled all those beautiful dot shapes off. Yes, it has. It looks really beautiful. Loving it, winning My plate wasn't so clean because it's got little speckles of bronze on it. I know that would really surprise you. Yeah. That'll be the last round of prints that I made. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. That is just fabulous. I love it. Let's do that again. This time I've got the white Posca pen. Let's do something with this. Let's start with some beautiful circle shapes in the white. Oh, that looks really cool. Beautiful mark making. Should have pulled out my bigger plate. I want to try this one. This one is a chrome mirror effect paint pen. I want to see what it does. It's not too bad. Not too bad. It's like a silvery chrome color That looks pretty cool. We're going to have to pull this with a different color now. We won't be able to use silver this time. Maybe we'll have to pull it with some tightened buff or something like that. Right? I'm getting out my favorite one. This is my new favorite because it makes incredible marks. And so much I think I might have to wait for it to dry and then I'll pull it with something. Maybe tightened, buff. Yeah, I think so. Have we got enough dots on there? Maybe, baby, right? Well, we can't use silver this time because we've got silver on the plate. You wouldn't see it. I really want to see. I don't think it was totally dry. We'll see how that looks as I've just smudged it all. Oh man. Note to self, that Posca pen takes a lot longer to dry then. I thought it did. Let's see what we got this poll. Titan bath and what was left on the plate. Oh, it's pretty fun. Definitely takes a while to dry that Posca pin, a big fat one. But look at that, that's pretty fun. It's got a little smudgy in the background because it wasn't quite dry. That's pretty nice. It really is quite endless what you can do with the Posca pins on the gel plate. Have a little, I haven't really played much with them before, but I'm definitely going to experiment some more with them. I think there's potential for great mark making. It's a good way to start the process of creating. Yeah, I'm going to pull out some more black and white papers and I can't wait to get started on my collars. 13. Finishing Project 19: I had so much fun creating with the Posca pens on the gel fly. I really like it on the tissue because you can use it for transparent layers and that works really well. That was just the standard chisel tip, but of course I absolutely went crazy with the big fat mother load of that massive posca pen. Look at the beautiful lines that it creates. This is on rice paper and it's absolutely beautiful. It's just absorbed it all up. I just loved it. I really enjoyed using it, and I think I'm going to play with it again. Definitely another day. It also worked well on the tissue because I really like the abstract lines. It's like creating abstract paintings. Oh man, so much fun. These are the prints that I've got to use with today's black and white colors. Yes, I did get carried away and I created some more and then some more I'm to pick out the favorite ones that I'm liking the best, probably. This one and this one, although I really like this one too. Then I'm going to add it with some other jelly prints that I have or some other textured paper. Some of these ones I really like the white on white, although it's a pearl white on pearl white paper. Look how beautiful that is. I do have some of the fabulous Coso paper as well, in both white and black. We may even have to throw in a circle, where am I going to start with such fabulous choices? Well, I really loved this print the best. I liked the big fat circle marks of the Posca pen, and I like the way it created all of those different textures. I think that's really beautiful. Pulled it with the silver looks so nice. I'm definitely going to use some of that. I might even put some of this one on this side. Now if I start with these backgrounds, they may or may not still be seen when I'm finished because I have so many options. I really love this beautiful one, the pearl white. On the pearl white, I might have to put some of that in, but then I also love to contrast the white with the black. I think that looks so smart. That's going to have to happen as well. I think I may even put one of these circles on this side. I think I'll start with this side, stick some of this down and see where I'm at this one. Still thinking about it. I might add some of this shape of paper or even some of this one. Something a little different on this side, but I want to still be able to see my beautiful background. I really like this paper that could work somehow on the baby. Then of course, we're going to need something a little more at some of these ones. Look how good that looks, perhaps some of these ones, that's pretty nice too. Yes. Okay. We'll just get started and start sticking some down. Let's not forget maybe some of my dramatic tissue. Okay, let's get moving. I've already changed my mind and I've only just started. That's because quite often as I start putting things down, I do tend to change my mind. This background is really beautiful. I really loved that it was an accidental print that I was just playing around with the stencil and I had some black of the ghost print on there. And then I put white on the plate and pulled it, and it turned out so much better than I expected. I decided to go with this coso paper because it goes quite transparent. I didn't want to cover up all of my beautiful print underneath because that's what you've got to think about when you're doing layers. Which do you like the most? What do you want to see in the end? I love all of these papers. It's going to be a juggle of which ones are going to work to be more transparent so that I can see the layers underneath. I was going to go with this one initially, but if I put this one on, then it blocks out everything from underneath. As much as I do love this, I really want to see my glorious print. I'm going with this coso paper because it has the white, it's got beautiful texture, but it also allows me to see my print from underneath. I'm definitely going to put the black on it because that's what I love. So much about black and white is the dramatic contrast. I love it. I love putting the dramatic contrast together. And seeing as this lesson is all about black and white. I can be very dramatic with the contrast. I'm putting the black on top of the white on top of the beautiful print. Then I'm just going to need a focal point. I wasn't originally thinking about this, so circle. But if I put this one on, it'll probably disappear. I don't know, I want something more dramatic. I think I might cut a circle out of this one perhaps, or else I could leave it in a line or even a square. I'm thinking about that idea. I'll stick these papers down first and I'll think about that idea. But it's definitely going to have some dramatic focal point, maybe to the side. Doesn't have to be in the center, I was thinking, perhaps over this side. So we'll see how we go really like the size of this circle. I used a lid to cut the template, and I think it's a good size for the composition of my page. But where am I going to put it? Will I put it in the center? I don't know, man, that's a little too obvious. I could put it over to the side which would go quite nicely there. Although I do think it's a little lost. Think I'll think about that idea. I'll stick this background down while I think about what I want to do with that circle shape. Maybe I could put the white one underneath. Maybe maybe something like that. Or is that just too much? Too much. Yeah, maybe it is. All right, I'll think about that one while I'm putting the background down for the other page and we'll see what we're going to find for this one. I just love how this print turned out. I love the textured layers of the dot and the silver background works really well. Right. So what are we going to add to this one? I'd love to use some of my crazy tissue with my abstract expressionist marks on it. I would just love to use some of these on the page. But I don't want to cover up too much of my background. I think this big fat Cosco Pan has got great potential for future experimentation. Look at that for abstract painting. Just love it. I could put this on here somehow on there, or maybe this piece might be better than that piece, perhaps. What about if I put it on this side? I need to trim it some more because I don't want to lose all of my print again. I want multiple layers. I want them to be transparent and I don't want to lose all of my stunning prints that I start with cutting that down in size, and I'll put that on like that, so I just get some of that fabulous line. Then what do we want else? I do love this paper. I could put some of this paper on that would look really cool because you'd still see the black lines underneath. Not too bad an idea I do like that edge there with the fringing. That could look good. Then what will we put on top for a focal point? Is the question, is that circle too big? It is a bit too big, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. I think you might be right about that. I'll glue this down first, and then still deciding on that and then we have to decide on the focal point for this one. Well, I'm pretty happy with how that's going down. It looks beautiful. See my abstract expressionist marks underneath it will go a little bit more transparent as it dries. Now back to that focal point. I think I'm going to go with the circle because yes, this does go a little transparent as well. This paper, I think it will probably get absorbed onto the black. And I'm going to put it off center. I've already decided. Definitely off center, because I'm not feeling centered today. No. Because actually, I think that's too obvious. Too obvious is just too boring. I'm putting it off center, I'm going to cut it there on the edge. And I'll put that like that and we'll see how it drives. Now I have a little rummage through my box, make sure you're looking back onto the last class and you've found objects. Have a little rummage if you need a little focal point, something a little different. I pulled out this beautiful feather. I got this one from a craft store spotlight here in New Zealand, sells fabrics and crafts and home decor items and all things. I picked up this beautiful packet of feathers. I like it. I like that. It's got the dots on it, it matches this side. It's the beautiful black and white theme. I think I'm going to put it right there on the page. It might take a little bit of persuasion to get it to stick down flat. Like I said, my art journal may never close, but that's okay, I can live with that. These pages are looking beautiful. I really like tactile. I like texture and tactile. What I love about this hundred days of college is we have an opportunity to really define what we like, who we are as an artist, and how we want to create definitely into color that's obvious. But also I'm really fascinated by different tactile textures. Isn't that interesting? Some people are more interested in line or drawing, or representational imagery. And it's all great and it's all valid. And it's just allowing yourself to process, to think about it, and to really own what it is that you like. I love the layers of the papers. It just really makes me happy. I'm going to glue this down. I'll give you a close up when it's dry, and I'm really happy with how it's come together. Can't wait to see what you're going to do with the black and white theme. 14. Reuse & Restore: Day 20, reuse and restore. So today we're creating our colos using recycled materials. Paper packaging, lots of found objects. Maybe some paper bags or string, or postcards or gift cards. All we could have another look at that video from week one where I was giving you that list of all those paper possibilities. Yes, I'm going to put that one in the list as well because that might refresh you and jog your memory, all the possibilities that you can think of to use for recycling and reusing. I think I've got some fabulous serviettes I'd really like to pull out. Hmm. And maybe paper bags. Have you noticed how fabulous sometimes paper bags are when you go somewhere and you buy something and they give it to you in your paper bag. Some of them look absolutely amazing. I love them. And paper is paper, baby. So think about what you've got laying around that you can recycle and reuse. Have a look at the list again to be inspired and I can't wait to see what you come up with. Don't forget to show me some of the photos of your favorite collages 'cause I really love seeing them. I love seeing what you create, and I love to see what response these props have. So start rummaging through your piles of papers and let's see what we're going to create, right? So if you've got a big pile of recycling paper packaging, you might get a little overwhelmed. So you need to find something that's inspiring you and a place to start. I really love these serviettes or napkins, depending on where you are, just I bought them a long time ago in my travels and I've never actually used them. So today's the day. I'm pretty excited. Look how fabulous those shapes are. So this is my starting point. My serviettes, I like that one and I like this one with the dots and I like this one. I bought these in all different places, but every time I'm out and about and I see some interesting serviettes, I have to get them because I know I'm going to love using them. Now we need a little pop of color, so I'm adding the red. Once I decided I was going to add the red, I picked up this, which is a bag that I bought something from in China when I was sitting on my son's lounge room. Bought it on the app. It was delivered half an hour later. No idea what it says. It's advertising something. But I'd really like to use some of these characters because I think it's really cool, the color is great. And it's just a paper bag, it's working in our theme of recycle and reuse. I'm loving it. I also have this bag that I got a few months ago from the Nova Art Center in Fan that was really fun. Like this one as well. Again, it's just a paper bag. I bought something, actually I bought a couple of these postcards from there. That's the artist's work and I'm thinking I might even use some of these. In deciding that I might use one or both of these postcards, I'm looking at them and they've got this really cool foil color because the artist used a lot of foil in his artworks, which were really cool and quirky. I liked them. Then I decided I had to have some for today's college. I pulled out this black piece of card stock, pulled out a stencil. And I started drawing with these particular chrome pens. These are pretty nice, they worked really well. I'm pretty happy with how it looks. I might put some of this into it for the inspiration of the artists. So this is where I'm headed and this is what I'm going to work with. I've also pulled in this from yesterday's lesson of making the colored tissues. I really like this one. I scrunched it up and it's so interesting and so beautifully textured that I think the colors would work well for this kind of combination. Yeah, that's where I'm headed. I'm going to stick it all on my page and we'll see how we go. Right. Where am I going to start? Perhaps I'll put this one down as a background because it would make a good background texture. Now don't forget when you're using serviettes or napkins that you have to take the backing off them. They're going to have at least one layer of white tissue on the back or colored tissue depending on what you buy. Sometimes if they're really fancy, they will probably have two layers of tissue. Of course, you can use this tissue like the lesson where we were coloring the colored tissue for collage. Make sure you put it on plastic because it will stick to your table and will never come off. It's very thin and light weight. But you could use this to actually create more colored tissue for your fabulous collage paper? Yes, I know. It's endless what we can do and how we can create these fabulous papers. That's two extra pieces of white tissue that I can throw some more ink and some paint on and create the beautiful colored tissue collage paper. Right, that comes off. I'm going to put that on there to start, because I think it's a really good background texture. What am I going to do next is the question, I really, absolutely love these, but I want them for a focal point. I probably won't put them on next. I do like this, I'm going to possibly rip out some of this. What am I going to do with these? I can't just stick them on like that. That's a bit boring. Maybe I'll cut a circle out of them, because then it will match these circles. That could work really well. I'm going to cut perhaps that section out because I really like that shape. I'm definitely going to tear out some of this because these look really cool. That's going to work Okay. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to rip out all those bits that I want to put in. I think on this side I'll put down this particular serviette as the background on this one. And then we can go from there. That sounds like a great plan. Stand right the beautiful serviette background down. Now the thing is when you're working with serviettes or napkins is there very, very thin, especially because you've taken the backing paper off so they can tear see my little corner there. It's torn as I've put the paper down with the map medium. But don't let that worry you, Don't let that put you off or upset or distress you because we're making collage, so that's easily going to be covered anyway. This is only the background paper. There's a pretty good chance a lot of it's going to be covered, so don't get stressed out when you're putting your papers down. If something tears or rips or breaks or doesn't go according to plan or it crinkles or whatever because it's collage, you can just add more layers over the top and it's going to work out. All right. In the end, the goal is to have an enjoyable time. So you don't want to be stressed out by it. I think I'm going to use definitely that piece. How am I going to get it out? That's a really good question. I'm not sure how much of it I want. I think I'll cut the whole section out and then just get smaller and smaller. Paper bags are just fabulous for creating paper is paper, baby. Now, if you wanted to create a section where you could open the page or you could possibly leave that on, but I don't want to. You can just like tear it off like this, just the whole handle off it. Really, really easy to do. I probably won't use as much of that anyway. In fact, I'll probably take the hunter off because I actually just like those shapes. Do I want the art center? I don't know, man, how may I just cut it down like that? And then I'll decide. I definitely don't want the museum shop. It's really those shapes that I like and they're going to work well with this paper. Maybe I'll tear out some of my Chinese paper next. And it's going to depend on what size of the characters I want to use. I'm liking the big ones. Then there's those ones that are smaller and those ones, they look pretty good. And on that side these letters, all of these are really usable for fabulous collage. They just look so good matter if you don't know what it says. It's just advertising tissues, I think it's advertising. So you know, pretty harmless. I like this section the best. So let's have this. Do I want three or do I want two? I don't know. And which of the shapes do I like? The best? I'll have to keep thinking about that. Now, what about these? We're going to need to cut these into some kind of shape. Yes, I'm going with a circle because I want to use that one as well. So I need to find a size and a template. I really love the little foil pieces in this. It's just fun. It makes me smile, right? My little water dish I'm figuring would probably get most of the shape in there, so that could possibly work. I want one of those cute little houses and probably some of that one, so I'm thinking about like that. Don't get too worried about it. It's definitely not going to be perfect. Perhaps we're going to get most of it in there and it should look fabulous. It's a little won king, but it's okay. I'm not minding that sitting on there like that. If we put up this one on this side somewhere and then we've got that fabulous piece, I definitely need to add some of this one for sure. For sure, maybe we'll just tear it. How much of it do we want? 15. Finishing Project 20: Oh yeah, this is going to be fun. See how much of my background is going to be covered up. Don't stress about your first layers. Working out. How to make the composition work is always the tricky bit. I love these characters. I think they look fabulous. Oh man, I've forgotten which way they go now. I don't want to put them upside down, but I think that's going to be too much. With that, perhaps I'll put them on this side. That could look really good along the edge there. I'm definitely going to cut the art center off. Right. Decisions made about that. That's going, because I just want those shapes, so I'm going to put that there like that with the red and that on there. Then I love these shapes so much and I really want to use them. I think I'll put them underneath I think I'll put them on top of the first background and underneath that section? Yeah. Right. Because then you'll actually see the small dots coming through with the big circles on top. Right. I think I'll try that idea, but what about my red? Oh, I got to put this in somewhere a little harder than putting one napkin on is putting on two. Now you should be able to see the smaller dots coming through as this one dries. Don't forget to take that backing off. Yes, I have done that before. Stuck it on, only took one piece of the tissue off and it doesn't lay flat, it doesn't glue. Well, it's really frustrating. Double check that your napkin or your server yet has got two layers and pull both those white tissue pieces off. I like the way you can see the other dots coming through the circle. That's going to look great and you'll be able to see that more as it dries. What layer? And my pudding on next. Remember, it's really easy to tear it. You have to be a little gentle. Now I'm going back with my fabulous chrome shapes and they're going to go on like that. Then this one's going on here somewhere and it's all looking a little fun. Now, we need either the red on here somehow. Not maybe under there, there's a thought, maybe I could trim that a bit more or do I want this one? This one might actually work better. Maybe I'll tear a piece of this and have a look, if I put a piece of this under this one just so it pokes out a little like that. I like this plan. Then you put that on there. Yes, that looks pretty good. I like that idea. Then I've got the beautiful foil and I've got it there, and I've got it in my recycled, fabulous tissue under there. I'll pull it out just a little bit more, so it goes on. What do you think? What do you think that is? A whole lot of fun. I think we're done. I think that looks wonderful. I don't think the reds going to work, maybe on that side. All right, let's have a look on this side and see what we're doing. We're definitely going with this at the bottom. Of course. I think I'm going to have to give it a trim for sure. And then maybe some white textured paper to connect those areas. Maybe some of the beautiful coso paper, which does go quite transparent once it's glued down. Perhaps I'll put some under there. Under there. Maybe, maybe share. Maybe I want to put it on top of there. I don't know, man. I think I just need to start gluing it down. What about some red up there? You know, that's totally possible. All right, I'll start gluing it down and then we'll see where we're at once. I have all these pieces in place, under or over. That is always the question that we're asking ourselves when we're creating the collage. Do I want that paper under or do I want it over? So do I want that on top over that piece or do I want it under that piece? I know they're tough questions, but that's what we ask ourselves as we're creating the collage. Which layer you're going to put on first? Which layer do you want on top now? I definitely want this one. Do I want it over or under? Do I want it on top? I definitely want it on top of the red one. Do I want it on top of that one like that or do I want it under that one? Yeah. I'm thinking under okay, That was a good decision, but that's the way it goes. You're just deciding all of the time if you want something under or over, do you want it on top or underneath this white paper from Coso? It goes quite transparent when it's glued down, which is great because it just makes another beautiful layer. I really like the fibers and the textures in this paper. I think it adds another element and layer without taking away too much. That's going to go on there and then I have to decide, am I going to add some of the red serviette up there? Because I cord, it does match and I do love it. What do you think? Should I add the red? I could add the red or else I could just save it for the next collage. Maybe this can be the inspiration for tomorrow's artwork because it's just beautiful. But I don't want to put it up there. Maybe I might want to put some of the painted colored tissue because then it would match that side. It would connect it a little more together. I think it would look pretty nice up there. And it connects with that page. It adds that beautiful copper color. And I'm really happy with this design. I think it's fabulous. I'm so glad I kept these bags. Of course we do. But don't we, As mixed media artists, we do tend to be a little b, a pack rat when it comes to beautiful papers and potential collage materials. Love the paper bags, love the serviettes, and I love all these bits and pieces that I've put on these pages. I think I'll finish it off with that piece up there. I'm really happy with how my collage dried up. I think the design looks fabulous. I'm just loving it and I love the fact that they are recycled papers, paper packaging, paper bags, postcards, serviettes. I mean, how much fun is that? I really could have gone into so many different directions with the composition and the designs. There's so many options and I'm really excited. I've got heaps of leftovers and I'm probably going to use some in tomorrow's collage, especially the ones that I couldn't fit on the pages today. I love that we just keep building our stash and making our papers. It's so much fun and I'm so glad you're with me on the journey. I can't wait to see what you're creating. What recycled papers are you going to use for your collage? And what designs are you going to come up with? 16. Multiple Media Masterpiece: Day 21, the end of week three multiple media masterpiece. So which of the prompts this week did you really enjoy? Which collages did you find that you leaned into more than others? That really is part of the creative process or sometimes some days are better for us than others, or we've got more energy. Some days we're not feeling so great. It's all part of the journey and it's all part of sharing it together. So how is your week? Which collages did you like the best? Which prompts? Did you find more helpful that inspired your creativity? I'd really love to know. So make sure you let me know. So today's prompt is to use any or all of the prompts from this week. Hmm. Which ones did I like the best? I don't know, man, I love the black and white, but then I really like the recycled one as well, because I could pull out those fabulous serviettes. So I might have to have a look through the papers we used and put something together with a combination of some of the prompts. Maybe I might create some more background papers from our fabulous time piece episode. Hmm, I'll have to give it some thought, but I love being able to put a few of the prompts together and to pick and choose which ones I really liked. So let's pull out all our papers. Maybe I'll have a flick through my art journal and see which of the collages I like the best. That's a really good place to start to get yourself inspired. Can't wait to see what you're going to do. Let's get stuck into it, right? So I've pulled out some leftover pieces from the previous lessons. I absolutely love this class. Well, I know, I love all my classes. It's just a lot of fun for me to be here, creating art, creating it with you, and being on this fabulous adventure. Now, my art journal is already getting rather fat on this side, so you don't stress out if yours is starting to do that. I do like lots of layers in my collage. I love them. Nice and textural. I'm quite sure that I will bust the spine before time is done and I'm really not too worried. What I love about having the collages in my art journal is I can look back and have a look at what I liked and even to think about developing the different ideas at another time. I like to put baking paper between my pages because I use a lot of mat medium and acrylic paint, they tend to stick. Is my feather cool? I love it. I put baking paper between my pages so that they don't stick. Didn't put one in there, but I probably will. I love looking back and seeing what I've created, the ideas that I've used, and thinking about maybe what I might like to develop more. I love this image transfer. I definitely like to do that again and even create this particular piece of texture and shape, bigger collage. That'd be really cool. Those crosses look good. I might use some of those crosses today, and I really love that textured paper. This one was so much fun. I absolutely loved doing the scribbly leaves with the water color, and the textures and the sprays. I used a lot of these in my other collages recently, these papers I made and I'm just going to have to make some more loved it and of course we started with our time piece. I've got another one of these prints that I was experimenting with with this particular stencil and the way that we waited for the time to pull that print. So I'm going to probably use today. This is fun. I love this piece and I love the little trinket and the small miniature from the previous class. I just love the way the whole course develops and it keeps building and we keep adding and growing, taking our ideas further. Today, I'm definitely using this because I wanted to use it yesterday and I didn't. I'm using it today, I'm using another one of these because I loved this print with the big Posca pen and pulling it onto silver. I'm going to use the red on that. I think I'll use some more of the ser, yet. I also have some of these pieces from the paper bags that I ripped up yesterday. I mean, look at this. Life is and I think I'll cut the art off there and put that on. Somehow life is art because I'm feeling it by that's what it's all about. I think on this side I'm definitely going to use this clock jelly print with the stencil. I have some more of the fabulous colored tissue. I'm going to start with that and then think about maybe I might want some, some of the white texture or I might even want to pull in some of the crosses. I know so many ideas, so many beautiful papers and so much fun. Which of the lessons do you like the most that we did in this particular class this week? Which textures, or papers, or prints, or techniques did you really, really enjoy? What are you going to use in today's I always have a particular class or a college that I really love the most. I think, I don't know, maybe because it was just yesterday, but I really loved yesterday's one. I loved the colors. I loved the shapes and the composition. But then I really did enjoy the time one as well, and I really liked the technique that we did creating that time print. Either of those two is probably my favorite then There's always a class that I like the least, you'll probably find that too throughout the journey. Some things that are just going to work a lot better than others and that's the creative process. Maybe it's the mood you're in or maybe the colors you choose. Or maybe it's the technique that you enjoyed. That's just how it goes doesn't really matter. It's all in the journey and the learning process. It all really contributes to our fabulous 100 days. I know that's a bunch. 100 days is a lot, but that's how we learn. I'm already excited, We're only up to class three. I'm already excited about the different techniques that we've been doing. I'm definitely going to go back and repeat some of the techniques and some of the papers and create even more collages with some of the styles that they've been doing. I think that over the journey of 100, oh man, we're just going to grow so much and learn so much. That is just so very exciting, right? I'm going to put these layers on then I think I'll put the background layer on the other side and decide what I'm going to do next. I had to start with that red serviette because I was just so busting to use it. Then these black and white shapes look so dramatic, they have such an impact. I just love it. And serviettes are so easy to use. They do tend to tear a little apart because we're creating layers in our collage. It really is okay if it does tear because we're going to add something else over it. It all just contributes to the texture. Even when it gets a little crinkled, it'll be all right. I really like the way you can see through the layers of the serviette, especially as it dries, you'd be able to see it more and more and it just looks fabulous, right? While that's drying, let's have a look and see what do I want to do over here? I definitely want to use some of this fabulous print of the clock theme. Maybe with some of my beautiful colored tissue that would work. Then I also have this one which I really like, which is another print of the same stencil. I could even use them together. Oh, I know, Right? Getting tricky now. Do I want to rip it in half? I think. Let's start with that. Okay. They're feeling a very brave, hey, let's rip this one in half. And if I put it on this side, which is about there and there, then I was thinking I could use the other half of this one like that. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think then? Do I actually want this underneath, maybe I don't want that underneath. Do I want it to be white or do I want the colored tissue underneath? That's the question. Although I do think the beautiful colored tissue underneath does give it another layer and it brings that beautiful color tone through so many decisions. I think I'll put the color tissue down first and then I'm going to put these two sections on like that and then decide if we need anything else. Maybe I'll find some little trinkets for this section like I had in the first lesson. All right. I think I'm going to do that. 17. Finishing Project 21: Right. So I've got all those layers on. They look fabulous. Although it will look better as it dries, because everything is so wet. But I'm loving this idea. I love that I had that extra print. What I like to do when I'm creating something, especially a newly exciting print or a technique on the gel plate, is I do make quite a few copies because I want to push the idea or experiment with different colors or try different things. It's always good then when you're creating to have numerous versions of a particular theme or element or stencil. In this case, it was the stencil. That's really fun. I like having those two halves together. I'm definitely going to go and look for some little trinkets just to finish off that page. I'm still thinking about putting these words onto this page. I like the idea of putting life is art. I'll think about that. I really like some of these on the page as well because they're just so dramatic. I like the idea putting some dramatic. I haven't decided what the shape is going to be. Right. I've torn a strip of these fabulous crosses. I think they look great. And I'm going to put thinking right there, I like that between those two lines. I think it adds some beautiful drama. And also it's got the lovely, warm tones of the bronze. So it connects more with this side, which I really like. I had a little play with these words. I've cut them out in a shape. And I'm just going to decide now if I do really want to put them on. Do I want to add that on there or not, is the question. I might just sit them there for a minute and think about it. I like the idea, but I don't know if I really want them there. Because it looks like an advertisement. Do I want it to look like an advertisement? I don't know. But I did pull out some trinkets to play with the idea for this side. Because I love these little pieces that I gathered for the found objects in the last class. I'm thinking I could just put them on like here. They like the cogs of this pattern here in the stencil. I think it's really cool. I like the idea of it. What do you think? What do you think? I'm thinking it looks pretty good. I like this idea. I'm not sure about that idea. It just looks like a bit of an ad and I don't know if I want it to, but I do love this. I think I'm going to definitely glue those pieces down. I think about if I want that or not, maybe if I put some more textured paper with it. What about some of the beautiful white textured paper underneath it? Do you think that would help me like it more? I don't know. Maybe baby, let's tear a piece and have a look. You never know until you try an idea. Then once you put it down on the page, you're going to know fairly quickly if it was a good idea or if you didn't like the idea. After all, the shape is really important. Trying to get the shape right. What about if I put it underneath this paper does go a little transparent, which I like very much. I could put it something like that on there. Does that look less like an advertisement? What do you think? Yeah, I don't mind it now. See, I'm thinking it looks okay. I really don't mind it now. It is a bit of fun. All right. I'm gonna do it. I got to do it. A stick that down there. And I'm gonna put my little trinket bits on there and then we'll let everything dry, right? Well, my pages are drying beautifully. Look how good it looks. I'm just loving it. And this one's going well. I did stick the cogs on, but then I decided that you couldn't see the stencil so well, because I put the colored tissue underneath which I love. It looks fabulous. But. I decided to pull out the chrome pen that I was using yesterday. Yesterday, I was using the silver one, and today I have a copper chrome pen. I thought if I filled in some of the areas of the stencil, you'd just be able to see it a lot better. That's my theory. We'll see how the theory goes. When I pull the stencil up, you just have to keep trying different ideas and working on your page until you're happy. Pretty sure I said that yesterday. That's really what I love about creating art. I love the adventure. I really love the experimentation and trying different things. These pages are looking great. I'm very happy with it. I really loved this class. I love making it. I love actually going through the journey with you and working on these techniques and creating these collages. It really does bring me a lot of joy trying different ideas that I haven't tried before. This is the first time I've pulled out these chrome pens, and that's pretty cool. I'm really liking it. I'll just finish this section here and we'll see if my idea worked then. I hope it did. Let's see how it looks. Ready? Yes, I think that's much better. I do like that. It's a little more obvious. You can see it a little more, especially if you look at it with the light on it, it shines a bit more. 'cause I kind of lost it with my underneath background color. It was a little tricky to do because I was balancing it over these cogs and I might even just put a couple of extra shapes in. I love these shapes here. That works really well. I just think it brings a lot more interest to the page, right? Well, I'm finished with these now. I love both these pages. I think they're looking really good. Was so much fun. I really enjoyed this class. What I like about this particular course is I like that it's building that we're building on each lesson, on each class, pulling things from the last class into this class. This particular technique that we did this time with creating the textures on the gel plate, letting it dry, putting another layer on, letting it dry, then pulling that print. I'm definitely going to explore that some more. I really enjoy it and I like that we can bring these prints and textures and papers into the next right as so. I'll give you a, I'm really happy with these collages. It was a whole lot of fun. 18. Let's Celebrate: Well, we did it. Congratulations to us around the middle floor class. Three is now finished and we have 21 beautiful collages. Actually I have twice as many because I do a two page spread. Don't forget to show me which collages you liked the best. Which prompt did you like the best? I'd love to know and I'd love to see photos of your artworks. Now you can find me in my Facebook group. So jump in and join us there. And don't forget to hashtag celebrate your creative self. I know that your artworks have come from this class. Now remember to keep all your papers and prints and leftovers from this class because they compound as we journey along. And you just might want to use them again for another lesson. I know I do. I know I use some of the materials from the last class into this class. And I'll probably take some of the papers from this class into the next class. I absolutely loved that time piece print in the first lesson. Oh mad. I'm going to be doing that again for sure. For sure. And probably bringing some of those papers into the next class. If you have any questions or concerns, you can e mail me directly and you can find out more information on my website. I really hoped you enjoyed this class as much as I did. I absolutely love creating these collages and I love that you're right here with me on the journey. Right? So I guess you can have a little time off and then we're jumping into class. Four experimenting with texture for dynamic collage. Doesn't that sound exciting? I can't wait. Don't forget to show me pictures of what you're creating and I'll see you next time in the studio.