Friday, October 31, 2014

Mixed media technique

Among all the mediums I use (oil paint, color pencils, charcol, and many more),  I'm going to highlight one I loved using at the begining of my artistic career, and continue enjoying it.

Watercolor is in a sense what made me the artist I am today. Even though now my tendency is to use oil paint when working on a piece, in the early stages of my artistic development I used a water based mixed media in a lot of my works being watercolors my main one.  That's why I thought it would be interesting to share the process with you.

First, I prapare the heavy weight watercolor paper by stretching it onto a pre-prepared wooden board.  Once the paper in stretched, dry and ready to use, I start painting the underlayer (a quick, light watercolor layer adding main colors).  After that, once the first layer is dry, I do the second watercolor layer. This time not as light and concentrating a little bit more on details, especially when painting people.  I let it dry one more time and I repeat the same process as many times as it needs, each time concentrating more and more on detail.  Once I feel the picture is ready, I add the mixed media.  I add mediums such as watercolor color pencils, acrylic paint (for very small highlights) and even in some cases I use gold, silver or copper leafing. I let it dry again and apply a mixed media varnish (very thin layer).


Here are some samples I created a while back:


















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