Mixed media painting

Mixed media with watercolours
Apart from the techniques you can use with watercolours why not try using pastels with them or acrylics, pencil, charcoal, let your imagination run riot. You can first use watercolour or any other medium but lets say you are painting a portrait and you start off with watercolour, you can put in basic first washes, let the washes dry and maybe put in the shadow shapes using charcoal, blend some of the charcoal but don't blend other areas, quite interesting effects can be made. You don't need to lay the charcoal stokes using the side of the charcoal, you can using directional lines if you like, the key with mixed media is variety and contrast with the medias you use.

Don't try and use every media you can think of in one painting otherwise more than likely you will get confused and everything can look a right mess so just concentrate on two at the beginning and see what effects you can attain with them. In the example above three media were used, watercolour, pastel and charcoal and by using a variety of marks and basically having fun you can achieve textures that are really interesting. Don't be frightened to have a go and create marks but it is a good idea to let your feelings tell you what and where to put marks on the paper rather than just consciously putting them in randomly. In the example on the left I have mainly used different media in the background, again the same medias were used. Using mixed media adds an extra dimension to your work used in the right way and like any other art it is practice, practice and more practice.

Some artists use mixed media in certain stages, they might use charcoal for the outline, Indian ink for tonal values then use watercolour for the colour and then maybe after this using thick paint using acrylics for highlights. I don't use this method because I think painting in stages like this can get a little contrite and methodical so I just go for it on most occasions but it doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing. You've got to have a good idea in what is going to happen when you put a certain media over the top of another and what sort of effect it is going to end up like. Don't be afraid and go for it! you might surprise yourself, I have many a time, there is no fixed way of doing anything in life so don't be afraid and have go and above all practice practice and more practice is the only way forward.

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