Mixed Media Surface Tutorial: 3 in 1 Technique

This technique I want to share with you is one I’ve been using for a while to create surfaces for my mixed media work. (I used this technique while working on my Decay series project.) I think it is a really great way to create a variety of surfaces quickly that are all the same colour and work together.

Using this method, you can create 3 surfaces. A two-sided fabric surface (one side is plain colour and the other is more textured), a block colour paper surface and a textured colour paper surface.

You will need:

• the fabric and paper you want to use
• either acrylic ink or I just use watered down acrylic paint

and that’s it!

 First, place your fabric on one piece of paper and paint. Make sure you cover all the fabric and it goes all the way through. I find this is why watered down acrylic paint works so well.

Immediately after you have finished painting, take the fabric and place it on your second piece of paper. Allow everything to dry.

When the fabric has dried through, take it off the paper and see the effects!

Here is another example I did, in different colours.

Front side of fabric

Back side of fabric

Block colour on paper

Textured colour on paper

I hope you found this helpful. It's so easy and straight forward, but I think it is a great way to get a number of surfaces in a short amount of time. It also means, as you can see in my examples, you can get great, matching colour blends on different surfaces, at once.