Yet again I must apologise for an extended blogging holiday – however this was an entirely unexpected one. My employer holds an annual golf day for customers, and my job is event photographer. This time I was asked to drive a branded golf cart for the day, and somehow it aggravated my old car accident injury in my neck. Subsequently spent the next week in agonising pain and up to the eyeballs in pain killers!
Fortunately it did improve so I was able to spend time sourcing supplies online (thank god for the internet!) for my next project – Mixed Media art.
I came across an artist – Finnabair – who does this amazing sculptural 3d mixed media art and fell completely in love with it. Turns out she has just released her first online tutorial, so I waved my credit card at it and sat down to watch.
Because of her copyright on the process, I can only show you the before and after, but not the intermediate steps.
First you need SUPPLIES!!
Lots and lots of supplies – you need all the hardware and bits to make the sculpture, and you need the gesso and adhesive and shiny powders and stuff to make it all pretty. Fortunately she has a range of her own quality products and they are available in NZ!
I got a starter pack of the Art Basics range which is the tubes at the top, plus shiny powers and also took a chance on some paperclay – the pink things are silicone moulds for the paperclay.
It was challenging to be stuck at home unable to drive or do much except look online for options, but a friend took me on an outing and I managed to pick up some various bits and pieces, plus stuff I found online. The paperclay was fun, and after a few trial runs, think I have got the hang of it now.
This is my work in progress with my boxes of stuff – my paperclay keys on the plate to the left, buttons and steampunk bits, and the box with the alphabet was a donation from a fellow crafter. Used a 6 x 6″ canvas as the base medium.
Closeup of the finished piece once all the elements are assembled. Looks a bit of a mess really but that is the magic of the process Finnabair has developed, you go from the above to this…..
Isn’t it fabulous! For my first go I am SO PLEASED how this turned out 🙂
Learned lots – I need better stronger paint brushes, my hair dryer does a great job of being a heat gun replacement. You need a *lot* of stuffs to fill in all the underneath spaces so it stick together properly.
This was really fun and exciting to see how it came together as a cohesive piece of art. Tomorrow I am going out on a drive to collect shells and pebbles from the beach for more interesting textural elements.
Have you tried Mixed Media? Have some favourite artists to recommend?
Learning to See Light 
Amazing! I have never seen anything like this. A well of creativity and the transformation is fabulous. 🙂
Well done. Have a wonderful weekend. x
Thanks Dina – it was really fun to do tho I was quite nervous that I would do a bad job. When you look at the before image its hard to see how it will come out!
This is beautiful, Stacey! The before image is pretty because…..pink and sparkles! But the finished product…wow! Simply gorgeous.
This is really gorgeous … and I have so much I could work with because I have been doing “stampinup” artwork for a few years now. I also own so all the primary colours of acrylic paint and a gesso medium. What I did not see you explain here is how you completed the “blue”. Did you paint one colour – mix black with it, spray paint? How did you accomplish the colour finish? I am very interested to know. I’d love the kids to get involved in making some of these for themselves! They love crafting with grandma – so this looks like fun – for ME TOO LOL
Thanks Charlene, the actual process is copyrighted to the artist Finnabair, so I’m unable to share the details. But I included a link to the course I did which has the whole process and all the ingredients information etc covered in five videos. Plus there are free demo videos of more of the products that might give you ideas. The waxes are quite lovely esp on black gesso.
Oh I see … I did not realize! I’ll have to check that out! Thanks so much!