The majority of my paintings are deemed mixed media. Perplexing for many folks so here's a little history plus an explanation of why.
In college and in post graduate art school in Italy I only painted with oils. So all “formal training” was in oils and many viewed a water-based paint as something solely for crafts. When I was pregnant with my first child in 1989 I was made aware of the lead in some oil paints. No fact checking for me, I simply started working in acrylics. Fast forward, the world now views acrylics and water-based paints as a parallel to oils. For many artists, it is simply a preference of how they use the paints. Different glazes and mediums that I use help to use my acrylics as oils in some sense, at least for me.
The first tube of oil paint was created in 1841. This was revolutionary and gave greater freedom to artists to work outside of a studio. Rather than laboriously mixing paints with powders and oils they now had tubes to venture out into the landscape. The advent of what is now called Plein Air painting, which means painting outdoors. The first tube of acrylic paints debuted in the 1950s and was popularized by companies like Liquitex. They provided a faster drying medium than oils and offered different flexibilities. Enough history!
I use a variety of paints and tools for my mixed media works. Scads of acrylic based products are continually entering the market today. I use a variety of brands and largely based on knowing which paints have saturated color and some that I use as ground color, so I buy them in bulk. Wolf Kahn was a master of knowing which paints were transparent which were not and was meticulous about which brand he bought not only in specific colors of oils but also pastels. Multiple workshops with him nudged me to truly pay attention to this, especially when it comes to transparency and layering color and glazes. Golden paint company has discontinued their glazes so what I don't have left from literally wiping out the art supply store with news of this, I now mix my own glazes.
Unique styles and methods of manipulating paint do not happen over night. Years of awareness and experimentation of what how paints layer on the canvas in transparency, impasto and texture have kept me thinking outside of the box. A friend recently sent a quote that said “ A new study shows that people who have a ridiculous amount of art & craft supplies live longer than those who point it out”. Heck, I might see age 100 in this case because I am a kid at the candy store and will never stop buying and trying new paints, brushes, supplies and methods.
My tools and tips might surprise you. Pictured are some of the things I use to manipulate and layer paint. From plastic scrapers to cut up credit cards ( what a concept…ha ha!) , inks, markers, glazing medium and occasionally pastels, they all contribute to my style. Uniqueness of applications and “mixing” medias is an approach that I have curated and worked on for years. Discoveries happen every day. There is no “how to step by step” for me, it is more about a God given intuition of color that I really can’t describe but recognize that it is a gift and plays a huge role in my painting! Traveling or just out in daily life, I take pictures of things, oddities, pieces of a painting in a museum with no agenda other than something about the relationships of color catches my eye. A crusty wall in Venice, something in nature, a snippet in a magazine, flea markets, farmers markets, you name it, inspiration is everywhere and influence ideas. This is just automatically built into my brain! There are days that I wish I could turn this mechanism to silent mode, but alas, that never happens. Eyes opened wide... ALWAYS!