Saturday, February 13, 2016

New obsession: Mixed Media

So in the three years since I last posted, I've moved beyond scrapbooking and made my way through cardmaking (still doing that) and on to mixed media and art journaling.  I'm not gonna lie, Tim Holtz and his amazing Distress products have been the catalyst for my new obsession ... but I've found tremendous inspiration from Carolyn Dube.

I'm 47 years old, work in a law office, and research my family history in my spare time.  With such rigid activities taking up all my time, it's not surprising that I forgot how to "play."  Fortunately, Carolyn rescued me from my rut.

I'm still working on shushing that voice in my head telling me that I'm breaking rules or that something is "wrong."  Turns out, there are no rules!

Carolyn has a monthly "Let's Play" challenge over on her blog, and this month's challenge is to use some of your neglected art supplies.  Well, since I haven't really been doing "art" for that long, pretty much all of my supplies are neglected.  But I have this drawer labeled "texture" where I collect random things - bubble wrap, tissue paper, drywall tape, and other texture-y stuff that would probably otherwise be thrown away - and I thought it would be fun to use some of those things to create a page.

Here's the end result:

I used some old foam pieces with blue and pearl acrylic paint to create the background, stamped some orange tissue paper and adhered it with some multi medium, some of that drywall tape painted in green, and stenciled with some acrylic paint and some texture paste.  I just love all the color - but especially all the texture!