24Steps Art and Design

I love playing with mixed media in my art journal and this week I thought I would combine the theme of of love with some mixed media art journaling. But first a short story about love (sadly I missed Valentine’s day)

It was a dark night …… no, really. It was quite cloudy but foxy didn’t mind because he could see the world in grey and he could feel the wet grass brushing on his legs. Scents greeted his nose telling him what had gone which way and where he had been earlier. He knew where he was. But he missed her. How he loved her big, round face; the soft light of it and her sultry ways. He ambled up to his den tree and sat there a while licking the remains of his dinner from his nose. Watching the sky he sang a song of love and longing to the moon who began to peep out from behind a cloud. “Why are you so far away from me?” he called out to her. She answered with beams of light caressing his face – “know I am always with you” she seemed to reply.

It’s whimsical I know but mixed media art journaling is great for that. Rather than trying to show a scene in response to a prompt you can show a feeling, a moment in time. So I started my page with some collage. A couple of years ago I made some repeating patterns (read to the end of this post to get your free copy to use in your own mixed media art journal page). I printed it out and tore it into strips which I alternated with strips from a book when pasting it on to my page. I knocked it back a bit with some dilute gesso and then added some stamping in pink and black ink. Using Neocolour, water soluble, crayons I drew the outlines of my fox and some whimsical hearts. Then I blended these marks out into the background with white acrylic paint. The fox I coloured with metalic oil pastels – they go on like butter and I blend them out with my finger. They give a beautiful sheen to his coat. I added stenciling with Nuvo mousse to give some dimension between the hearts. I love my little cross eyed fox. Click the images in the gallery below to see my process.


What do you love about mixed media art journaling? Is it the chance to try new supplies? Or maybe you like the extra dimension you get from being able to include the properties of different supplies on one page. Watercolour, for example, can be used to create beautiful and detailed paintings with a lot of care. But what if you use it more loosely to create a background and then add charcoal linework and oil pastel for form? I would love to know what your mixed media love is below in the comments.

Free art journal collage papers for mixed media love.

Hugs, Ceri xx



Tagged as: Tags collage, mixed media, oil pastels, pattern, stencilling