Mixex Media Collage and Painting Class 04/09

Back in April, 2009, I took a Mixed Media Art Class in Escondido at Stampfully Yours, taught by Julie Prichard . We completed two 8x10 paintings on Wood Board Boxes. We used vintage text and music paper, the wonderful new line of studio acrylic paints by Claudine Helmuth, stabilo pencils, rubber stamps, with a stencil on one and a mask on another. It was an ambitious workshop, but Julie is an excellent, organized teacher and marched us through it so everyone finished their pieces in three hours. I'm really happy with how mine turned out.

I'd love it if Julie taught another class at Cat's again soon!

Both of these have been sold.

Layers of Love Painting Style

Earlier this summer I took an online grunge painting class taught by San Diego artist, Julie Nelson Prichard. It's called, Layer Love, but she calls her style, "Julification." She's an excellent teacher and I learned to love the look of a painting that looks old and beat up. I always liked that style, but never knew how to achieve it. I also learned the joys of polymer acrylic medium and acrylic glazing medium and how it can enhance your painting style. Julie also loves the looks of drips and expertly teaches this technique. I learned to love and enjoy the process of applying many layers of paint to get a certain look. Her style isn't for everyone, but it works great for me.



It started out as a closed class for six weeks, but she decided to open it up, so it's still available. It costs only $43 and you get access to 9 HD Video Lesson's and as much feedback as you want. More than 200 students participated in the first rendition of this class and left a lot of art to look at, with their own feedback, suggestions and encouragement galore for each other's work. I highly recommend this online class. You will enjoy it if you're new to painting or looking for some different techniques and mediums to add to your repertoire.


I'd like to show you the paintings I did in her class. Many of them are backgrounds for now and I will eventually collage over them to complete them. They were all painted on 9x12 inch, 140lb watercolor paper, except the last green one, which was done on 8x10 canvas. I have some collage in mind for it, but haven't added it yet. I finished my final project, but haven't taken a photo of it yet to show here. I'll try and remember to do that later this week.

You can use this technique for art journals, atc's or stand alone. Please enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments section. If you want to see the details of the texture's and layers, just click on each on to see it enlarged..

New Tim Holtz Products I Want to Try

If you love that distress look and enjoy the effect you get from crackle paint - there's great news. Tim Holtz and Ranger have come up with a new clear, non-color crackle. I've been using the white, called Picket Fence, but always paint some other color over it anyway, so this is perfect for me. Tim writes, "Paint this over stamped designs, photographs, canvas collage artwork, and just about any paper craft embellishment you can get your hands on." I'm excited to try it, but haven't checked for local availability yet. But I love how it dries so fast and gives a beautiful effect.

Tim also blogs about some other new products he's releasing at CHA this week. I'm interested to see the new line of Idea-ology products, especially the word sticks, film strip ribbon and mask sheets to create my own masks. His blog gives a lot more details about these and more.

I'm a huge fan of Tim Holtz - his art, his products, his work ethic, his workshops; so I'm happy to show my support for him here. I do not receive any compensation from doing so. But he's always coming up with products I lust after and have to have.

Coming Up - Chris Cozen Weekend Workshops In San Diego

I am so inspired to create original characters, but can't help looking ahead to an entire weekend of art classes taught by Chris Cozen at Stamping Details in Poway, CA.

Chris is a self taught, mixed media artist from Southern California and long time teacher. I have heard nothing but raves about her from artists everywhere. I love and greatly admire her work and also own both of her books. You can find those here.

On Friday, 07/31/09, Chris is giving a class on Monoprints and Collographs from 6-8 PM. Here's the link for details.

On Saturday. 08/01/09, Chris is teaching a class on some incredible vinyl product to paint on. Here's the class info.

Later on Saturday, Chris'will teach: Layer Upon Layer: Collage and Mixed Media Meet Fabric . This will be my first foray into the world of fabric. I've been avoiding using fabric in my art - mostly because I don't want to have to buy one more thing! But I'm very attracted to fabric art and art quilts and gorgeous fabric in general - the possibilities seem endless. Here's the great news for those of you who wanted to take this class but couldn't because it was full; Chris has added this same class on Friday, 07/31/09 from 1:30-5:00! I'll be at the Friday class! Yay! Stamping Details hasn't added this class change to their online calendar, but call the store to sign up.

Sunday, 10:00 - 1:00 pm wraps up the weekend with a class called; Making Your Mark: Sgraffito Techniques. Click here for details. I love making all kinds of cool marks, so this should be fun.

If you need some inspiration, want to learn some techniques and adore painting with a group of other cool, women artists - call the store to sign up. You won't be sorry. Let's paint!

More on Karen O'Brien's Mythical Creature Workshop

I wanted to show you some of the process that went into making our pieces. We painted on two pieces of 9X12 watercolor paper, 140lbs. We tore them in half after the initial paint and collage were done. She gave us vintage text pages and some small plants and flowers to cover some of the base color and white paint. We monoprinted two other colors and used found objects and stamps to add more color and texture. I'm showing the two torn pages I have leftover and two new images I need to copy on a laser printer. I'll show you the finished pieces when I put them all together. I love the process of many layers going over and under the creature image. I also love having no clue what the final outcome will look like. Learning to love the process is one of life's great recipe's as well as art's! 

Here are the finished pieces:

I added more paint to the backgrounds and painted details on the critters and viola!

Mythical Creatures Workshop

I took Karen O'Briens all day workshop at Stamping Details in Poway, CA (San Diego County) on Friday 07/24/09. We created mythical characters from clip art and collaged them with craft paint and Golden acrylic transparent paints. This style involves many layers of paint, a few lalong with some stamping and using found objects to create texture. We also used stabilo pencils. It was SO much fun to do, so you will definitely be seeing lots more creation by me as I use parts of animals, plants and flowers to create odd, original beings.

There were 13 of us in the class, including my favorite art buddy, Sally. Here are her two unfinished pieces. She's invited some us over during the week to make more! Yippee!

My friend Dian Chen made these two goodies. Diane is part of the Art Posse who paints weekly at Sally's house too. Take a look here for more of Diane's art.

Here's Angela's unfinished piece. She made three incredible pieces, but only sent me one.

Nameless Blog No More

Welcome to my blog! I have so many things I want to share with you, including my art and general thoughts/opinions about life, sobriety, mental health, spirituality, politics, radio and things that make me laugh.