MIXED MEDIA SECRETS SPELLED OUT in 6 EASY STEPS - My "Hamburger" System (Video #1 in Series)

Hello, welcome to my channel. My name is Karen Campbell. If this is your first time here, I'm a

mixed

media

artist and I love teaching drawing and

mixed

media

tutorials here on YouTube. Today I want to talk about my mixed media process. because I know the biggest challenge I hear from my students and from people who are just in the mixed media art journaling space is that they don't understand the order of operations or the order that the things are supposed to go in. materials because if you put some things in the wrong order they can cause a big mess and I totally understand that so what I've done because as you can see in the projects behind me I use a really

system

atic way of layering my materials and I'm consistent with almost all of my mixed media projects now that said mixed media is mixed media you can really use whatever you want and I think there are no rules but there are certain guidelines that you should follow to not do that. making a mess like for example using oil based products with acrylic, these products don't match, they don't mix and match the most and I know a lot more about this written in my mixed media magic book, but today I wanted to show you my mixed media process, I think like a

hamburger

and there are six layers, so I'm going to give you a really quick tour of the studio, show you what I have and then show you the six

steps

to making a very beautiful one. project and if you follow these six

steps

using these same products in this same order, you will be guaranteed success in mixed techniques.

Are you ready? Okay, come on, okay, okay, here we are in my studio. I have a closet full of paints, art books, and acrylics. paint is definitely something that should be on your mixed media list, no matter the brand, no matter the consistency, you just need some acrylic paint, you will also need adhesive, so you will have a lot of options and I will talk about them in a moment, also hello mixed media piece, oh there's my mixed media inspiration wall, I hope this inspires you, but all of these pieces, whether it's a squirrel or a graceful mermaid, are made with exactly the same process and then, oh, and there's my boyfriend hello Jamie, what's up my friend?

They are all made with the same process and that is what I will show you today. Even though I have all of these products here, there is actually a very consistent way to layer them. so you have instant success and I have made a little list here of the six steps okay so the first step we go from the bottom up as you can see here is the first step you need an adhesive and I use a mixture , I'm sorry. matte medium for this step we will always always always talk about that when we're going to do a project that we're going to do right now, the second step is we have our layer of paint and it's always water based paints or acrylic paints.

Number three is where we can come in and we can use our art crowns or our water soluble pant pencils. This is anything water soluble that can get in here and work great with your paint layers. Anything gelatos, water soluble pencils that work with the neo color tools. There are many products that fall into this category and then we get to the adhesive layer. Now I don't know many artists who stick with this layer, but this is my favorite layer and I always use matte Mod Podge. For this layer you can use other products, but that's just my option, it's cheap, widely available and works great.

Then we have the fifth layer, which is our Pitt Pens marker or paste marker layer, so this is where you want to layer and do your details. work in Pitt pencil or paste pencil and then the last layer is another layer of adhesive or sealant and again you have many options. I'm going back to modge podge matte because I already took it out of this layer and it makes a really nice stackable sandwich. I have done this over and over again. I have old products that are exposed to 120 degree heat in the attic and all of this survives.

You should pay attention to the brands you are using. Some brands are lightfast, others. I have since stopped using certain brands if they weren't high quality, for example the Tim Holtz distressed crayons that I used to use, they are an equivalent product to gelatos and I use them in the layer of art crayons like I was talking about. those I have stopped using because they are not lightfast and similarly with sprays these are also not that fast meaning they fade and fade so I stopped using them too many people ask me about using kopeks, which you know, I love kopeks.

I don't use copics in my mixed media work because firstly they aren't fast either and secondly they are alcohol based and we are only interested in working with products that are water. -based or ink, that's all, not oil based, not alcohol based, does that make sense? Write it. Okay, let's do a project right now. I'll show you exactly what it all looks like. We are ready to get it. mixed media party started what was the first layer, I said it was adhesive and collage. You know you can skip this layer entirely. I should say this is optional, but a lot of people like to start with the collage, myself included, but if you skip it later, that's fine. if you just keep an order one, two, three, four, five, six, you will be successful, so I like to start with collage because one is relaxing, it's fun, three, it doesn't require any brain power and four, it sets the stage for the rest. my piece also influences my color scheme so a lot of times I start with paper, if I'm not sure what colors to use I just go to my paper and whatever paper I choose are the colors that will be in my piece so again , I don't have to think.

I say I don't know what looks good together. Well, look, these people are already telling me what looks good together. They say that cream, green, gray and pink are corresponding colors, so I. I'm going to believe them because they made this super cute tissue paper and I'm going to use it as my collage layer, so I already mentioned that they have a lot of different adhesive options. Oh, on Tuesday morning they put this sticker right under the first one and Me and you have many options, it's very overwhelming if you go to this store and I don't want you to be overwhelmed, so you have all these means, do you have gels, varnish glossy matte, medium matte?

Okay, any medium, but it's made specifically. to work with acrylic paints so you can mix them you can use them as a collage there are also stickers they change the consistency depending on if they are shiny and they will tell you if they are shiny you can change your paint if you mix this, let's paint it will become shiny, this one you can mix and it will become matte, and all of these also have adhesive colors so they change the paint, if you mix them with a paint they will change the quality of the paint in some way.

They all have an adhesive quality and you only need to read the back to decide what this is. It says thin, it is very transparent and shiny. Plus, you don't have to read the labels. This one goes with paint and some of them do too. I must say this is a fake, it can be a finish or a prep and sometimes you will have it as a prep and you can't use it as a finisher. This goes down to Matt, it's mostly clear, fluid and not thick. so you have all these options, let me save you a little time.

I use matte medium for 99.99% of my projects, so if you are looking for a long time, don't be overwhelmed, buy this one and you will be fine. What I do is I rarely mix this with my stain. However, I always use it for collage and when I start collage I tear off some papers and again you can skip this step completely to have this ugly page in my journal I was using it to demonstrate some things and I'm not interested in it and I want to turn it into a pretty page so that when this is all said and done it's pretty so you can do this right in your junior art journal so you can also do this on canvas or you can do it on watercolor paper or you can do it on wood or you can do it on a canvas board.

I'm doing it in my art journal because this is a watercolor paper so we can handle anything. but actually, if you're using it as a modified book, you can also do this same process on a modified book and in fact, part of the reason I like making collages so much is that by just putting so many layers you can actually , we are strengthening the integrity of your paper, especially if it is an old book, for example, having the entire collage layer will help protect it, strengthen it and help it last, so there are many different reasons why people do the collage stage. collage if you have wrinkles in the paper just take your finger and flatten them out it's very simple so yes you can prop up old pages you can cover up pages that don't look so good it's time to play for me and again like me.

He said it also informs my color scheme, so I don't have to choose my colors. I'm basically just choosing my colors for me and look at this I'm just putting it right into my art journal like we're not precious this is playtime in kindergarten oh yeah when we move on to the second layer which it will be the paint coat again you can choose any product you like any color you like okay the frequently asked question I get all the time is because I use Mod Podge all the time and I say why don't you use Mod Podge for this stage.

The answer is that these maps, these mediums, including the matte medium they use, are specifically formulated to perform as if they were made to mix with paint. with the acrylic paints, so when I go to put on the acrylic layer, which is step 2, it's like a perfect match made in heaven, they go well together, there are no surprises, no strange behavior arises and Mod Podge is really a glue and a sealant and it is possible. I'm not going to say that you can't use it as a first coat, but it has a not so matte finish even though matte is called matte, it's not, it has a little shine to it. which makes it beautiful for the middle, like the burger layer of the sandwich, but it's not great for the first because it has a glossy finish and dries almost to a plastic sheen, so when you put acrylic on it.

On top of that there is more of a risk that the acrylic paint likes to peel off and peel off, it also doesn't like to accept the pencil very well, you can't really put the pencil on top because it will just slide off, that makes sense, so there is a There are some reasons why I don't start with Mod Podge but technically can you do it? Yes you can. I just don't like it, it doesn't work. Again, it's specifically formulated to work with acrylic paints, so I like to just work and say, "Oh, don't worry, I'm fine, no surprises, nothing is slippery, nothing works on top, anything for my next stage, It's going to work, it's going to work great besides this, okay, another reason I have a collage layer is for texture." Texture is something that grew on me.

I didn't always love the texture. I didn't understand her at all. I didn't really like the wrinkles on my faces, but over time I actually grew to love them. It makes them more sophisticated. It kind of separates like girls from women in the arts world, I thought that matters and I'm just kidding, but I do. I came to love him. I guess that's the best way to say that I came to love. appreciating it over time and being able to pass your hand through something that is interesting, it just gives it another dimension, but I totally understood, it is not for everyone.

I get it, I even get it as a collage, I hate it for years because it was like this is a mess like what is that what are we doing here like what does this mean and again what it means to me is actually not so much the visual because it's like which we won't even see almost at the end but what it does mean is that, again, it's time to play, my colors are chosen and I want to start this party, plus it's much more inspiring than this page here, which is blank , ugly and boring, in addition to the advantage of the matte medium in These products are because they are water-based soap and cleaning with water is very

easy

.

I'm going to clean this up right now, so I grabbed my hair dryer, dried it, and then I went into my little art closet and just picked out the colors that would match, I mean, it really doesn't get any easier than that. I decided to do a hot pink instead of a regular pink, but you can do either one, just, you know, get it so it's close enough, oh. I just realized there's some orange in there too, so if I get desperate and really want another color, I can use orange too. Now look, one thing makes me feel good, as there are no wrong ways to apply pain, so this time I like to use. old credit cards you can buy these fancy things at art stores you can use a sponge brush you can use a brayer this is like I don't even wash my materials this is still sticky from God knows when but you can use a brayer or You can be boring and apply it, but I really encourage you to post it here because it's super fun, so yeah, at this point I put it like it's still in game mode and I usually put things in to see how. my collage pieces are spread out.

I do my entire page the same way, where I like to think of this as a frame around the page.piece, it just depends on how you want it to be and how precise or if you want it. kind of an advantage, your appearance more messy and dirty I guess that's what I'm going to do today, don't fight it, just follow your instinct, so again, this is liran, this is step two, which is the paint layer, okay, so we have our first layer. It's a sticky collage, the second layer is the paint layer and if you don't want this to be a mess you need to dry it between each one, just dry this with a hair dryer and I keep the air dryer plugged in all the time and you dry the layers, otherwise you'll be mixing them while they're wet and we don't necessarily want this to mix. so i mixed green and pink, you actually get brown because they are opposites on the color wheel, different lesson for a different day, but if you just dry your layers between each one, you will never have to worry about making a mess, just know .

Okay, so that layer is completely dry and I'm still working on the paint layer, so what's next? I want to outline it. I'll be ready. I'm pretty happy with this background, like it's ready to rock and roll so you can do whatever you want during the paint coat. You can make templates. It is very popular and very fun. You can do all kinds of things with different paints to layer this, but I'm trying to keep this demo to a reasonable length. so I'm going to stop right there. I don't put his face in the center because this is just one page, booboo.

I know it's hard to see, but I just needed to know where I'm going and then. We are still in the paint layer, so you must understand and be friends with gesso. Gesso is your best friend. Think of it like primer. When you paint the walls of your house, you always start with a primer. It's exactly the same. Same thing, so wherever I'm going to paint something specific like the subject of my painting, I want to prepare the surface and also it's like everything is jazz crazy, so it's definitely a painting, that's why I include it in The level of paint the one we're in now sometimes I don't like the hair and all that because the hair will be so I know where the face is going to go and I'll put it in my water and again I keep working. on my paint layer, I'm just going to dry this with my hair dryer so I can move on to the painting part, how I need to do the face and, you know, Americana, so Ramco, most paint manufacturers have a skin color, so just choose.

I'm very lazy when it comes to palettes, as you can see, you don't take these things very seriously. I do, but not only that at this moment I don't take it seriously. When we get to the setting phase, I'm going to dry this again with my hair dryer. Okay, now if you get a little stressed like, oh, I can't see my lines anymore, you can just take a regular pencil and outline it. We move on to the third layer, which is the artistic crayon pencil layer, this is any water-soluble solution. Then you can use pencil on top because we're working on top of the acrylic layer.

Now we can use anything that is soluble in water. They have so many options. This is where the mixed media market explodes. use anything here that's again anything every time you add water and it will melt, it's considered water soluble, so they're like these new color tools that you can use, you can use them for crayons that are equivalent to rare, my gelatos, go have a chili. I'll show you in a second these are Stabilo DH k tombow markers. You can use watercolor pencils. Let's see first. I need to draw his features and I can use any of these to do that.

Just know that if you choose a water. soluble material at this point when you put on our next layer, which is another adhesive layer that will run because any liquid that touches it, like I just showed you, will make it run, so if you don't want it to move, just choose like a pencil, I hope it helps and I always follow my guidelines, yes I will leave my guidelines and it would be really cool to be like a super artistic fart today again, this kind of how to draw faces, this is a different ball game. We're not going to cover today, this is very different in the middle, in fact, I'm not in the middle.

I'm right at the end of publishing my next art book, which is about finding your style, so I've been editing it today. so I'm not going to lie, I'm getting inspired to try different things doing the role right now, so the name of the book is called how to draw and find your style. I know it's super creative. I know I really worked on it. the title is worth so, so much time, actually, um, today I was talking about all the different types of line weights and shading options and how you can hash, you know, you can do cross shading and it goes on and on, you don't even understand it .

I'm off to a good start so we have this on top of this is our art crayon pencil layer and this is a great way to shade with these because you can put them in place of paint so paint and mix your paint colors well and this on I'm actually using these fancy black winged pencils that are actually kind of water soluble. I don't normally use them at this point, but you'll see how easily it mixes just with my finger, so it's kind of like a puree that mixes with the graphite. down there it's actually moving like crazy but all I have to do is use your finger to create this blend which is a lot easier than mixing with paint trust me on this and I like doing that but as a teacher and if you like beginner mixed media student doing the blending with your finger is like a dream so yeah how fun is that and how

easy

is it we're going to give it some dramatic shading on this side you can even darken it just by going down and shading.

It's worth going deeper, so below the neck it's usually shaded, but oh my gosh, look at that, you don't even need a brush. Come on, it's cool, maybe we'll give it similar cheeks. It would be great to give it a pink color. I have a lot of colors of these, I'm just being vague because it's across the room and again I really just wanted to show you this, it's more like a demo than anything else, no, we're here, how amazing is it that it's so fast and It's like butter. mmm I hope it's okay to get those insu, but I think it's like I repeat this process over and over again, this here and now process never gets boring or old for me.

I think it's fun and stimulating every time, so under the lips. so I'm making the shading more dramatic on the right side of your face than the left side of your face, so just say you know the shading appears on the hairline around the eye, we can give it a little bit here , Krista and again, that graphite is like giving me a big shading boost also under the nose on the nose obviously under the mouth and under the neck and then again you can put these lines back in if you keep losing them just put them back in right now.

I'm like Look, I'm definitely losing my eye on her around here, but now she's coming back to life. I also forgot about her hair, so while we're still in the well, that's actually a good point since we're the art crayon layer and the paint layer. You can go back and forth with the same upgrade as long as you're working, but in this part of the sandwich between the sticky layers here we can go back and forth between here, so once you've made this sticky layer, you're locked in. In this part you have to move forward, so if you want to keep working here for a while, you can do that, but this blocks all of this below, so you only have these two steps left, okay, so let's put some paint on the hair.

Alright, I promise to show you gelatos, these are gelatos here, they are available in a huge variety of products and they come in some amazing skin tones as well as other fun colors, and they are completely compatible, they are compatible with all of these, these same products water soluble like Stabilo x' and these are crayons and the tombow is anything water soluble that they can play with interchangeably. I'm going to use this same hot pink to color her lips, just repeating again the same colors that are in the rest of the project, so all the refining parts are done after this layer and after the next exclusive layer, it is removed all the paint and it's really like a base coat for me and again, this is very unique to my stuff.

I don't even know what other people are doing anymore. I've been down this mixed media rabbit hole of my own style for years and I'm not getting out, so I'm committed to teaching others the way I do. and instead of fighting it and wondering what everyone else is doing, I just decided, well, I don't know, but this is what I'm doing, so you can join in the fun, oh, you can't even see it, woman. It is a paint pen that will surprise and subdue you. Look, this is what I have to do. My paint pen layer.

I can't wait to get there. It's my favorite part. Remember? I said it once you reached this fourth layer. it's a layer that you can't go back to, so you have to make sure that if you're ready to move on, but I just saw this really cool ice cream color that I've never opened before, real quick, I might have to throw out some green. on her hair just to see how it looks oh yeah, super awesome how it looks so again feel free to have fun playing around on this layer oh okay and you can mix that with your figure your finger or not okay let's move. let's go to layer number four, which is the sticky layer, so we're blocking everything, this blocks everything and then we're left with that, okay, because what we have happening is all these layers, so you have things that are going to move. we have the paint layers, we have the collage underneath, we have half matte and we need to block it so we can finish it on top, so this is where I go for my Mod Podge matte, you can use other layers of varnish here, but I don't like it because They take a long time to dry.

I can put my pot lair, John, here, try it with my hair dryer in about two minutes and I'll go on with my life, let's show you, okay, just a big warning, here's. products like that are super new, water soluble in this layer of art crayon that go crazy if you put liquid like Stabilo on them, which is like my favorite black version of these, they go crazy when you do this layer so you have to be super Aware that I don't have anything here that's super crazy so I feel like I'm good to do what I'm about to do so it's going to blend everything together incredibly well so this is matte Mod Podge and I could have left it. too much in just saying it, but I just wanted you to do it in a way that you know you shouldn't be afraid of it, but this is blocking all the layers underneath, so if you have black Stabilo going on, you have to be a lot more careful when putting this on your expensive because it will scratch it everywhere and I really like the way wiping it with an old towel just seals it up so much that's all I know if I hit this with my hair dryer it's like it dries crazy like this so so so so As fast as two minutes, right, everything is well closed down there and I already feel better, right.

I'm going to get my hair dryer so we can move on to layer number five, okay? super excited, we're almost done so we're at my favorite layer of all time. We've done this one, two, three, four. Now we're at the pit pens bookmarks, part of the burger art sandwich. Alright, can you go? and paint here if you have to, yes you can, so don't feel really blocked, you can paint over my podge, it's not the end of the world again, it's just how to see the shine, it looks like plastic, so I like it, I'm afraid it's like removing it because that's what your plastic is, oh that work, that plastic that you layer, however the beautiful thing about these black markers worked like a dream, plus you have two options, you can paint.

Pens and similar markers are a great maker, but make sure it's water-based and not oil-based you want. that's fine, they work well, which works much better than the Arpit pens which come in a ton of colors and I've been collecting them over time, you've been using them for years and I've only had to replace them like my white . and my skin color like it lasts forever, they are filled with a beautiful fully archival permanent ink based ink that is waterproof, it's like it's acid free, it's a miracle and works great on top of this brilliant service Mod Podge, so I do all my details on this you can also use it because of this shiny surface of modpodge, if you don't, if you don't wait, you can use it to make a bunch more shadows because there's like a little window where it stays wet.

You can use your fingers just like we did with the gelato art crayon layer. You can do a lot of shading during this step if you want. Hi, how cute is that again, no brush, no fuss, just easy, breezy shading. Another amazing thing is that if you mess up and make a mistake, all you have to do is grab a damp white paper towel and this will just wipe away. I just licked my finger. I know it's disgusting. I just don't have paper towels, but I had to show it. How easy is it to remove? Is amadness and then if you want something more permanent, all you have to do is not clean it.

I'm trying to find a green that looks great in her hair, so just let it sit. and then it won't move, so guys this is good for me, this is where I draw in my paintings, maybe our friends between us, us and I have a lot of tutorials about hair and stuff like that, no. you: what if you want to spread them? You can either do it or just don't mess with them and then they'll dry nicely so it's totally up to you which way you want to go and you have about 20 second windows where you can decide if you want it to stay there or not. um, so funny, so funny, like it never ever gets old, why I gave up and I'm like, you know what it is?

I'm going to do and this is just what I'm going to show, so yeah, very fun, okay, I'm looking for black, that's all this poking around. and this is how I do all the details, this with black so you like it, since some people are eyeliners and some are not. I'm definitely a liner and you can, depending on the tip, like in my brush strokes here, very loose. So it depends on the tip you choose. This one has like a brush tip, but some of them are like I have a tip that doesn't move, so it's going to make a different type of brush stroke, so it just depends on which one. you grew it which one do you grab sorry Grube beats aren't really a word last time I checked Grube okay so I'm going to do this a little quick this is getting to be a really long

video

but you can do that and then just leave.

Now let's go and sometimes if this is wet for a while and you want to freeze it, I'll actually take my hair dryer and dry it. You can also um and I'll do this in a minute. You can actually put another layer of Mod Podge on there. Also, I'm outlining everything and this might be good for similar lashes, okay, I don't know, you can't even hear the squeak, it looks like squeak, squeak, squeak, that's how, that's how slippery and that's how the mat is. Is this Mod Podge matte? Remember no, there is a shiny version and you can use it too until now.

You can also put in some highlights like, oh, that was his entire eyeball. I'm going to have to put it back. It doesn't look good, so I'm putting some highlights. I'm doing this quickly because I want to finish this as if this year is the longest streaming

video

of all time. I try to keep these longer for my paid students, that's okay. Every once in a while you have to give YouTube, my YouTube friends, some feeling that you know what I'm saying, okay, and then we have to put back the black eye that I just got, oh yeah, sister, from what I'm talking, whoa yowzers, what is it? passing my hand like he's doing his own crazy thing there, but now we're committed, so now we're in it to win it.

The tab is sacred, but Jolie, sometimes you just have to do it. You know, I'm Sam, she's like. I don't even know the 1980s, something sticking out of the top tab, see girl that's all I have to tell you, I told you I talked to my girls, it's like a legit problem, okay why not? You know what I'm saying, why don't you, oh, remind me. from an unglamorous 80's girl Charlie's Angel I'm engaged now we're in it to win it oh yeah we'll give it like the bangs that go with you never know who's going to show up on these pages I'm telling you Yeah that's the whole process and oh my gosh how funny, so you know, if you want to add some little things last minute, you certainly can.

This is the green of her hair. We could add a little bit of green in the background because it remembers everything. underneath is locked, locked and loaded, so if you want to add a little bit of paint, you want to bring in a little bit of paint on top of here, like for the background again, you can really do that. I'm just shortening this for time and then the last one. The layer is adhesive sealant again so every time the thing is fixed in place I will apply another layer of Mod Podge on top and that will seal all the layers of marker on top and then the last layer and I never talk This is very important. and what I need is to close this with a sealant so that your journal pages don't stick together.

Let me go get the can. I'll show you exactly what I use, so I use this. This is American, it's the finishing sealer and me. I just take it outside and I spray the whole page, it stinks a lot, but it's okay and then like that it's a full spread, but like I can, you know, I can close my book and it doesn't stick, so how nice is that. the whole process, so it's a

hamburger

sandwich layering

system

that I use in almost all of my mixed media projects, so, yeah, if you have questions, PLEASE put them in the comments section.

I'm totally available. I receive an email. every time someone comments, it's totally fine, I know there's a lot going on, but that's really all I have to offer. And if you're interested, I have hours and hours and hours of amazing lessons and projects, animals. M animals, whimsical animals, a ton of girls, oh my gosh, they like so much of everything in my mixed media society, which is my membership group for mixed media nuts like me at an amazing art school, quiet but other than that, of course, see you. every Friday for a free tutorial here on You Tube and here's a playlist of my ten favorite girls and now that you understand the whole process you can start to identify exactly what I'm doing, when and why, and now you know, enjoy.