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Painting Twist: Mixing Your Medium 101

If you want to take your creativity to the next level, then you should start making something you have never made before. If you’re looking for paintings with a twist, have you ever considered mixing a medium with another medium? In this article, we will explore the world of twisted paintings and mixed mediums of art.

Beautiful urban street art

As artists (yes, you are!), we should always innovate and experiment in order to create unique and bolder works of art. Over the past few years, mixed media art has appealed to a lot of artists because of its freestyle techniques such as its combination of different artistic methods in order to create a new method. Sure, it does sound like hard work, but it’s much more fun compared to sticking with one medium as it currently is. 

Mixing mediums is no stranger to the art world. According to art history, it emerged in the 20th century during the time of artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Moreover, this type of art incorporates different objects to a certain painting, sculpture, etc. instead of just using the traditional materials used in that particular discipline.

If you’re an artist on a budget, this type of art will definitely work for you considering that you can use random objects that can be found at home which are no longer in use. You can also use dried leaves, flowers, magazine cut-outs, old newspaper, etc. to give your art a more aesthetic appeal. 

Mixed media art is all about paintings with a twist, so get ready to be messy and playful! Paintings with a twist combine different techniques such as drawing, layering, collaging, scrapbooking, decorating, and any other type of artworks that you can think of. 

Channel your inner creativity and reinvent your artistic style, there is so much more to art than painting and sketching.

Techniques that can Put Twists on your Paintings

Mixing your medium, literally: How to Use different types of paint in One Artwork:

If you’re a newbie stuck between which medium of paint you use, this technique will definitely work for you. Different types of paint provide different textures and different finishes. Use them to your advantage– it can give your artwork different textures, good blending of colors, emphasis, and so much more. 

A very abstract painting

Paint pouring:

Paint pouring is a fun way to make abstract paintings without too much effort. It’s beginner-friendly, requires no technical skills and is cost-effective too since you only need a few art supplies– acrylic paint, a Pouring Medium, and a canvas. The Pouring Medium is used to thin out the acrylic paint to make it pourable and easier to spread around the canvas. You can use whatever pouring technique you want and the best part is that no results ever come out exactly the same! You can also incorporate silicone oil to the mixture to adjust its viscosity. It also creates cell-like shapes in the painting, just like in the image below.

Colorful acrylic art work

Collage Painting:

Collage is a very familiar art concept to a lot of people, including non-artists. Incorporate old newspapers, magazines, dailies and other used papers that are no longer needed in order to create emphasis on a certain part of your painting. The fragments that you’ll use shall be arranged to create an emphasis on the subject as a whole.

 An example of a poster collage exhibition

Assemblage Painting:

Assemblage painting is something similar to collage, but this technique emphasizes the use of three-dimensional objects rather than two-dimensional ones like paper. You can add any three-dimensional figures that you can find to add aesthetic appeal to the overall painting such as broken dolls, buttons, shells, fabric, literally anything that you can find at home that is no longer in use.

An assemblage painting being made

Incorporate gold leaf to painting:

Add a touch of shine to your painting by adding gold leaf on top of your transparent acrylics or oil. You can use imitation gold leaf (you can also use gold leaf flakes) but if you really want to incorporate a genuine one, then it’s up to you. It’s not as complicated as you think it is– simply make sure that the surface where you’ll apply your gold leaf is smooth – don’t forget to seal or varnish the painting once it’s finished and dry.

Gold leaf used for painting

Mixing other mediums to your painting:

Apart from your freedom to incorporate different types of paint into a single canvas, you can also use both wet and dry mediums in a single canvas. To create interesting, unique textures, beautiful blending of colors, you can use dry mediums such as charcoal/charcoal pencils, pastels, chalks, graphite and colored pencils, as well as anything else you can think of.

A great mixed art media

Challenge your Inner Creativity: Start an Art Journal

If you want to experiment with your art style further, you can make an art journal (using a sketchbook) and try to make an artwork everyday. An art journal is more effective than the canvas with this type of challenge since it’s smaller and this means it requires less effort than doing it on an actual canvas. 

An art journal on a table

Moreover, this is not only great for practicing and mastering your medium, it’s also great for expressing your feelings. Treat your art journal as a visual diary and express your inhibitions through art. 

Key Insights

If you really want to improve your artistic style, you must explore different mediums and experiment. Thus, don’t just stick to one medium or art concept– the world of art is as wide as the sky, it has endless possibilities so don’t let your creativity stop you from creating unique pieces of art. These examples of paintings with a twist can help you channel your inner creativity so that no artwork comes out the same.

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