How to be a talented artist - The secrets of mixed media!

"I can't draw."
"I would love to....but I am not artistic."
"I wish I was as talented as you."

These are all things I hear all the time and I have had enough of it, you hear me enough! I think it is very lovely and I am always very humbled and chuffed to bits when someone likes something that I have created because I struggle all the time with my inner critic, I really do. There are many pieces of art that I have created over the years that I love, many that I hate and many that are just 'meh'. None of us are exempt from the inner critic but you know, ya just gotta get on with it and create.

Now all those comments listed above are rubbish. Total and utter tripe. Yes that is right TRIPE!

You wanna know what the answer is to those statements...I will tell you..

Firstly it is practice. That is the secret. Practice, practice, PRACTICE and when you have practiced do it again. Honestly and truly, the only way to get good at something is to keep doing it. This is why you didn't just hop in a car, drive to the test centre and pass your driving test straight away, you had to practice at it. The same is true for art, keep practising until you get it where you want it and once you are there, keep on improving it. I truly mean it, the only way I can draw what I draw is because I keep on doing it a bit at a time, learning and trying to do new things.

The second trick is to learn and experiment with your materials. You need to take one medium at a time and learn it. Learn how to blend with it, how it reacts with paper, how it reacts with water etc. I see so many people with stacks and stacks of supplies and they become a jack of all trades rather than a master of one. Don't get me wrong I do love mixed media and experimenting but I see so many people who think that buying all the latest products will make them an artist when I am afraid it does not.

OK there you go I am off my soap box now and you have no excuse but to go forth and create art!

Crayola Portfolio Oil Pastel Review and Artwork Share

For a long time now I have coveted the portfolio oil pastels from Crayola. When I was at college we were told to buy oil pastels but then we never ended up using them at all. Just as well I bought the mega mega cheap ones! They were so so cheap. I mean total cheapies at £2 for 48. Sufficient to say they were pretty useless too. They were dry and chalky not at all like oil pastels should be, all smooth and creamy.

Anyway I have never been that bothered that my oil pastels were next to useless but then I watched a video on youtube of a lady creating a page and she used oil pastels and I thought that they looked worth a go! (I can't remember what the video was now or the brand she used now).

I asked on the Art Geeks Facebook page if anyone had any recommendations for oil pastels and they all said the Portfolio ones so with that many recommendations I thought I had better get those ones lol!

Here is my review of using them for the first time along with a share of some of my artwork...

A page that I really don't like!

Another art journal play for you.

I really don't like the finished article as it were but I thought I would share it with you anyway. I had already started recording the process, then I dropped my camera. Total nightmare. From then on the day kinda went in a weird way but I kept on journalling and I kept on recording and well, I just wasn't feeling it today. You know how you get days like that?

Anyway I felt it important to share with you because I don't think you have to like everything you create right? I thought I would be brave and show it but you don't have to share yours if you don't want to.

Create from the heart for you!

Explore You with collage

This week at college we moved on to collage to get us to look more at the shapes of things. When we draw it is easy to just get on with it but when we collage from still life we have to look more at the shapes so as to make the correct piece of collage material. I have to say I got on far better with this method and I had fun.

I started off doing  a collage of the still life in front of me and this is how it turned out:

And then I decided that I wanted to have some fun and do my own thing so I created this which is far more me as you can tell from the piece "Explore You"