Tutorial: Mixed Media Art ‘Mountains’

One of my favourite quotes of all time is from Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It reads: “I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.” For some reason, ever since I first came across them, these words have really stuck with me. And so, I decided, I would use this quote as inspiration for my next piece of art.

Read on for a tutorial on how I made it.

You will need:

• Your surface (I am using a piece of cartridge paper)
• White Gesso
• Green watercolour paints
• Green acrylic ink (watered down)
• A selection of green papers
• Glue
• A selection of paintbrushes
• Water brush

First I applied the gesso to the page with an old paintbrush, in a rough rectangular shape. I made sure to create distinct brush strokes and also used a sponge to add texture.

When dry, I painted the background with green watercolours. I started off only using one colour, but decided to add another to create variation.

I filled a water brush with watered down acrylic ink (you can use it as normal if you’d prefer) and drew mountain shapes across page.

Next, using a thin paint brush, I wrote “mountains make poor receptacles for dreams” across the page, repeating to fill the space.

Then I cut the green papers I had into mountain shapes of varying sizes.

I arranged the shapes along the bottom edge of image and, once I was happy with the placement, stuck them down.

Now your image is finished! Let me know on Instagram if you make anything with this, using the hashtag #madebyciara!