Thimble does oils, Vertigo does collage and a bunch of other techniques...
I think that Tori Bat! uses oils, but I'm not sure.

Anywho.
I fell into the mixed media stuff. I use Max water-based oils paints, acrylics, and Koi water colors - sometimes all in one piece. Lots of layers of varnish, matte and glossy, even between layers of paint. The piece I'm working on now is the first that I've stuck found bits onto, as well. Wheeeeee!

Who else paints, and what do you use? Do you mix? Does anyone out there do realism in mixed media? How about mixing digital and traditional media?

I am all about combining traditional real media with digital imaging. I love to work in oil, colored pencil, even canned aerosol paint. Scans of such, and photography, can be nicely composited with digitally created images. If you have a good scanner, digital camera, printer and wacom(or other brand) stylus and tablet, and the right software, you can blow your own mind!

You'd be so proud of me - I decided that I didn't like where this art paper piece I was doing was going - so I added paint, Max oils, acrylic, and watercolor. Then, because my paints are all dried up since I've been doing PhotoShop instead of canvas, I ended up with some rubbly parts where the paint would't reconstitute, and some muddy color mixes because of my limited pallette...

It looked like the aftermath of a carnival, bits of pink cotten candy (faded out red art paper) and popcorn (dried chunks of white watercolor) drfiting around in mud...

So I added some pieces of my busted birthday balloons, and snippets of the ribbon. It's already a mess, and I'm making it a BIG mess now. Ha. Cam found a plastic play coin to go on it, too.

I'm calling it The Morning After Field.

I use allot of watercolor, for the one reason that is you make a mistake you can soak up the pigment very fast. The best secret I have found is in the weight of paper that you use. If you use a 50-80 cold press, you can get a good quality yet if you use pencil allot for sketching I always find it hard to erase it after I have finished my art creation. I know the 100-150 cold press may cost you ten dollars a sheet, but it is well worth the money for the sure fact that you can almost do any thing with a pencil and erase your mistakes. I use watercolor, colored pencil, and pen and ink.

I like oil paint on wood for painting but I've been know to use anything I can get my hands on. My favorite thing to do these days is to scan in a painting or drawing and work on it in photoshop adding collage elements.

Another old alt technique that I love but haven't had the time to fully jump into is encaustic.

The medium, technique or process of painting with molten wax (mostly beeswax), resin, and pigments that are fused after application into a continuous layer and fixed to a support with heat. This achieves a lustrous enamel appearance.

This is a great technique for mixed media and collage, you can find more info here

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/e/encaustic.html

Here is a piece I did a few years back using wax.

I mainly use paints to tint stuff or provide a rust inhibitor. I do a lot of found object stuff (haven't in some time) and I use paint to cover big monochromatic areas, or shield an area from patination.

I started combining my typical watercolor or graphite compositions with my more sculptural pieces. Watercolor on unprimed wood can be very nice. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about archive quality of my materials, so the fading and natural absorption is acceptable. I also have a top-secret technique (i.e. too hard to explain) for applying a metallic texture to paper, and I've been known to mask off certain designs on sheet-metal in order to control the amount of rust that can occur, thereby creating a 'natural' image with a minimum of interaction.

actually JaNell, I love charcoal--thats where I excell at. but most of my work is mixed media...
My paintings are mostly acrylic, esp since I layer my paint on very thick-so thick that one of my painting is sharp to the touch....I have one oil painting that I've been working on and off for the last 3 years...and I'm working very hard to get it to look like acrylic *laugh*

I also work in metals. Most every kind, I miss shop space. I hand raised a bowl from a copper disc. Thats my nicest piece, in my opinion. I made a knife but didn't finish it caust of flaws in the metal.

I use charcoal to rough out shapes and designs, but mainly use a 2D drafting program to do any real work outside of roughing out shapes.

more to come when I'm not sleepy.

Sonicgoo wrote:Another old alt technique that I love but haven't had the time to fully jump into is encaustic.

That's something I want to try to learn soon, too.

Do you use those pure pigments a lot? I've mixed those with glaze for the walls of my house, and tossed them on a few pieces, but not really mixed them directly into paint for a piece of art...

creapyrob wrote:I also work in metals. Most every kind, I miss shop space. I hand raised a bowl from a copper disc.

Very cool. We (TheSym) and I have some tools to work fine metals over here - an acetylene torch and such - but I really prefer beating the crap out of heavier metals like copper. That's why anvils are always on my wishlist.

YayHooray has a great multimedia thread that just started. It promises to show off some excellent work. Everyone over there is very talented.

You can see it here.

I'm going to *try* to post some new stuff within the week. I'll post links here, as well, if I do.

JaNell wrote:Very cool. We (TheSym) and I have some tools to work fine metals over here - an acetylene torch and such - but I really prefer beating the crap out of heavier metals like copper. That's why anvils are always on my wishlist.

As much as I hated hand raising a bowl it was A LOT of fun to smash the hell outta a disc of metal over and over again! It uses the funky shaped hammers and stakes/anvils.

Hello Janell

Refering to encaustic work, I've never saw the need for the staight powder pigments(that's an economic decision on my part). I've always just mixed the oil paints directly with the molten wax, and damar varnish. I keep a seperate tin of molten wax and an electric skillet as a pallet.

Be careful to keep the heat as low as possible so you don't start a fire. After you get the wax melted down add the varnish then turn down the heat so it looks like its going to congeal and then just barely turn it up.

The more varnish you use the harder or more paint like the finish will be, the more wax you use the softer and the finish will be more like a candle.

You need a heat lamp or torch to burn the layers together once you are done. This is the funnest part

Also work on a board or metal, canvas will allow the wax to crack, and will frustrate you to no end.

I would suggest doing some serious research before trying encaustic in order to avoid problems