Sketchbook Love.
Mixed Media Sketchbook Class
Welcome to this free 35 minute class which shares ideas, inspiration and wisdom for working in a mixed media sketchbook.
A sketchbook is a brilliant place to fall in love with your own art. A place for you to develop your own unique approaches. A place to have a creative conversation with yourself. A place to unearth and notice the moments and details which you love in your own art…
CLASS INFORMATION
The video is 35 minutes long but could easily fill a whole afternoon or more of art making.
This is not a prescriptive class where you have to use the same materials as I do.
Consider it an encouraging invitation to explore and use what you have.
Everything for this class is on this one page. You can watch the video above and there is a list of materials below…
In this class we will cover:
How a sketchbook practice can lead to creative breakthroughs
A powerful yet simple art idea, using repetition and variations on a theme. It’s a process you can explore again and again.
I will share a few interesting ways to mix art supplies, we’ll be using ink, collage, acrylic paint to make simple mono-prints, drawing and more to create striking pages in our sketchbooks.
Mixing media.
Ink, drawing, mono-printing
and collage…
Suggested materials
This class shares a few ideas about how to develop mixed media pages. If you don’t have the exact materials please use the philosophy of this class and pair it with the art supplies you do have.
A sketchbook
My recommendation is to use the sketchbook you already own. In the video I am working in a square Sketchbook from Stillman & Birn. If you’d like to make a sketchbook for yourself from one large piece of paper. I have a tutorial here.
Acrylic paint and roller
The paint I am using for the mono-printing is a heavy body acrylic paint from a French brand called Sennelier. It has a satin finish. For the mono-printing technique it is advisable to use a roller to get a nice thing layer of paint.
Acrylic ink and paper towel
In the tutorial I prepare several pages of the sketchbook with a painterly ink background using acrylic ink.
Deli wrap or wet strength tissue
In the demonstration I am mono-printing on wet strength tissue paper and deli wrap.
Link to where I purchase Wet Strength tissue paper
Glue and scissors
You will need glue and scissors. You can use any glue which will stick paper to paper. i am using Matt Gel medium.
Drawing materials
You can use any variety of drawing materials you own, for example fine-liner pens, felt tip pens, coloured pencils or white pen. Here is a blog about the felt tip pens I like and use. The coloured pencils I use are Polochromos from Faber Castell or Luminance Pencils from Caran D’ache. The white pen is a Gelly Roll from Sakura
Picasso Sketchbooks the book showed is called Sketchbooks of Picasso Je Suis Le Cahier by Arnold Glimcher and Marc Glimcher published by Thames and Hudson. 1996 (Link to an article about Picasso’s Sketchbooks)
TOP TIP FOR MONO-PRINTING
WITH ACRYLIC PAINT
Mono printing with regular acrylic paint demands speed. The paint will dry quickly. This means your drawing will have to be fast and swift for this process to work. If you would like to work at a slower pace you can do this by slowing down the drying time of the paint, If this process is one you would like to explore further or you would like to be able to work at a slower pace it may be worth buying some acrylic retarder which is a medium which you mix with the paint to slow down the drying time.
Online classes
to INSPIRE you
If you’d like to learn new art techniques. Develop your own unique art style and create art you love, then you may like to check out these experimental, fun and informative mixed media online art classes.