Mixed Media Figures

This week we made a mixed media portrait of ourselves with someone else important in our life. L drew herself and a friend, R drew himself with Dad.

First we added some random background colour to our paper with watercolours.

Next we used acrylics and inks to add stencilled shapes and stamps.

We then used permanent markers to write onto the background some feelings about the person we were going to depict in the picture.

We used a graphite pencil to sketch in very simplified figures. We painted over the face area with white gesso but left the background patterns showing on the bodies. Once the gesso was dry we painted in the facial features and hair with water colour crayons and acrylics. We redrew in the details with pencil. To make the body stand out against the background we painted a "glow around it. R got a tad carried away with this bit. As you can see our characters ended up wearing clothes with a lovely pattern on them similar to the background.

Best friends by L

Daddy and me by R

This lesson was adapted from Lifebook 2013 - an on-line art course for adults which I am taking this year.