Mixed Media & Acrylics
Acrylic paint, collage, texture, ink, and paper, layered freely. Meditative abstracts, dreamlike worlds, and art with no rules but joy. Come play along with me.
Choose your subject
Pick the path that calls to you and follow along, one painting at a time.
Meditative Abstract
Quiet color and calm shapes, painted as a kind of prayer.
Why mixed media?
Acrylics dry in minutes, so you can build layer upon layer in a single sitting. Paint, paper, and texture all work together, and if you don’t like something, you simply paint over it. It’s the most forgiving place to begin.
Fast and forgiving
Dries quickly and covers easily. Mistakes become new layers.
Anything goes
Paint, paper, ink, pastel, and found objects, all on one surface.
Water cleanup
Acrylics clean up with soap and water while they're still wet.
A century of freedom
Around 1906, Hilma af Klint was already painting glowing abstract works, years before most of the world was ready to see them. Wassily Kandinsky painted color like music, and Paul Klee made small, playful worlds of shape and line. In the 1910s artists began gluing paper into their paintings, and Juan Gris and Kurt Schwitters built pictures from wallpaper, tickets, and scraps. Acrylic paint arrived in the mid-1900s and made all this layering faster and easier than ever.
Pioneers of abstraction and collage
All works shown are in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
What you need to begin
Start small. You can always add more later, and simple supplies are plenty for learning.
Acrylic paints
A starter set is plenty. Add white and black in larger tubes.
Gel medium and paste
Gel medium glues paper and makes glazes; modeling paste builds texture.
Collage papers
Old book pages, tissue paper, maps, and magazine scraps.
Mark makers
Pencils, ink pens, oil pastels, stamps, and anything that leaves a line.
Sturdy surfaces
Heavy mixed-media paper, canvas, or wood panels that can take layers.
Techniques to try
Layering
Build a painting in many thin layers, letting a little of each one show through.
Collage
Glue down papers with gel medium, then paint into and around them.
Texture
Spread modeling paste, then scrape, stamp, or comb into it before it dries.
Glazing
Mix a little paint with gel medium for a see-through veil of color.
Paint kindly
- Mist your palette with water, or use a stay-wet palette, so the paint doesn’t dry too fast.
- Rinse brushes before the paint dries on them; dried acrylic won’t wash out.
- Let your rinse water settle, then wipe the paint sludge into the trash instead of down the drain.
- Keep a practice sheet nearby to test colors and textures before they go on your piece.
Your first mixed-media piece
Choose three colors. Tear a few strips of old book paper and glue them down. Paint one loose layer over everything, let it dry, then add marks with a pencil or pen. Repeat once more. Stop when it feels peaceful.
Fresh from the Mixed Media blog
Lessons, paintings in progress, and the artists I’m learning from. More to come.
New posts are on the way.
Paint with me
Hands-on workshops are coming with the Art Club, including guest artists. Workshop ideas we’re planning:
Intuitive abstract paintingCollage journalingTexture and layersPainting imagined worlds
Explore more
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