I’ve been taking a few online classes lately. Exploring areas I already feel comfortable – mixed media, collage, watercolours – and adding to my range with the help of some fabulous teachers.
What I was not expecting from this, is how it’s encouraged me to revisit some older pieces that I’d got stuck with.
To find out more – catch my newsletter out today (sign up below if you’re not already registered)
Hi – I’m Mixy!
This is Mixy 🙂
I’m a mixed media & textile artist from London, UK.
I love to share what I’m making, and I hope it brings some inspiration to your creative time.
You can see what I’m making on this blog, and in these places too
I’m here to bring a little bit of spinning bright colorfulness to your Friday, and to remind you today is the LAST DAY of the 21 Secrets Flashback Sale 🙂
If this inspires you to play with more color, more mixed media, more art journaling: don’t forget today is your last chance to grab $21 OFF these 21 SECRETS online courses
‘Color, Color, Color!’ ‘Tell Your Story’
‘Tools & Techniques’
‘Embody’
+ The Best of 2014 & 2015
Keep up to date with all I’m doing and making with my newsletter. Once a month or so I’ll drop into your inbox with the inside stories behind the colorful things I’ve been playing with and what’s inspired me this month.
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Flashback Sale! Heads up folks!
You can save $21 on 21 SECRETS 14-16 November. Get art journal inspiration and share the fun with the 21 Secrets online community
Use the coupon code FLASHBACK at checkout
for $21 off any of these 21 SECRETS editions.
Every edition of 21 Secrets contains a feast of ideas, new techniques for art journaling and secret tips & tricks from a diverse and talented team of teachers.
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You’ll have instant, unlimited access to the material and classes, yours to download and keep forever. And bundles of support and love from the 21 Secrets online community.
“Art Journaling will lead you home to yourself. It will soften your fears and turn your insecurities into jewels. It will heal your heart and help you build a deeper relationship with your Truth. Art journaling is a catalyst for joy, creativity and peace.”
Connie Solera, Dirty Footprints Studio
This is an affiliate link, by purchasing from a link in this post I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you! X
I’ve worked my socks off to make this as fabulous & fun as I can, I’m really proud how it’s come together. So much so, if you don’t think you’re getting value for money by the end of the first segment, you can have your money back.
Just £97 for a whole year of color (or 3 instalments of £33)
I’ve worked my socks off to make this program as fabulous and fun as I can, and I’m really proud of how it’s come together.
So much so, if you don’t think you’re getting value for money by the end of the first color segment, you can have your money back in full without a single quibble. Srsly, not even a little one!!
Join me and a group of wonderful creative spirits to share this adventure in color ——-Y’know over half of the 2017 group are returning for a second trip around the color wheel (some signed up before we’d even finished last year!)
I’ve even reduced the price, to make it accessible for everyone there’s the option to pay in 3 instalments.
Yesterpost I showed you a black & white photo of a paint doodle and asked for guesses what the ‘real’ colors are.
I kept you waiting longer than I intended, only cos sometimes the days gallop by and all of a sudden it’s much later. So here we are, and here it is!
Yesterpost I showed you a black & white photo of a paint doodle and asked for guesses what the ‘real’ colors are.
I kept you waiting longer than I intended, only cos sometimes the days gallop by and all of a sudden it’s much later. So here we are, and here it is!
If you guessed red or green then you can consider yourself correct and I’ll message you with a link to claim your prize! 😀 YAY!
Thanks for playing along- it was really interesting to know what colors you ‘saw’.
Color is a real fascination of mine, and the more I learn the more intrigued I become.
This painting is one of a series which I made for a little ecourse all about color combinations: TWELVTY XTRA which I’m offering as a gift to folks on my email list. It will be available in a few weeks, so if you’re interested, join up now, and I’ll email you as soon as it launches.
Color is an integral part to all types of creativity, it influences our moods and emotions, it’s linked with memories, and it’s everywhere! As we tune our eyes in to notice it, life becomes brighter and more vibrant.
What is TWELVTY?
TWEVLTY is an online program all about color.
How much is it to join TWELVTY?
A full year of color is yours for just £97, or 3 monthly instalments of £33. Click here to Join now!
What happens in TWELVTY?
You learn about the meaning of color – its application and use, the meanings and symbolism each color has throughout history and around the world.
You get access to a wealth of knowledge and resources to enhance your use of color in your own creative practice.
Color is an integral part of creativity, influencing our moods and emotions, linked with our memories, and it’s everywhere!As we tune our eyes in to notice it,life becomes brighter and more vibrant.
Who is TWELVTY for?
Whatever your creative interests, as a hobbyist, a professional, an educator, if you’re curious to learn, the resources in TWELVTY are sure to enrich your understanding of color. In each step around the color wheel, we dive deep into each color’s meanings, how it’s used, and how it features in our lives.
What is the color wheel?
The color wheel is the roadmap to our adventure
We’re using the 12 part color wheel, it looks like this:
Comprising: 3 Primaries:Yellow, Red & Blue; 3 Secondaries:Green, Violet & Orange. (Made by mixing each pair of primaries) 6 Tertiaries:Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet, Red-Orange & Yellow-Orange. (Made by mixing a primary with it’s nearest neighbouring secondary)
Primary & Secondary colors are separated by the ‘in between’ Tertiary colors
The tertiary colors, the in-between colors, sit in between the primary & secondary from which they are made. The difference between these and their neighbours is subtle – they are not quite one or the other.
Some choose to skip over the tertiary colors and just use the primary and secondary colors for a simplified TWELVTY.
You can opt to take a rest in between to spend some extra time in Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Red & Orange, and still have all the resources for the tertiaries to revisit any time.
How long is the program? How much time will I need?
The program runs throughout 2018.
Beginning in January with a bird’s eye view of the color wheel to see the territory we’re going to explore, then preparing for the adventure ahead.
The steps around the color wheel take place March through November.Starting with Yellow we step around the wheel one color at a time, spending 3 weeks in each color. In the first part of each segment I share the resources I’ve gathered together for you; the second part is all about the creative process, working in just this one color!
For each 3-week section you’ll want to allow an hour or two to read and look through the ebook, guides and resources in the first part. In the second part you’ll need the about the same amount of time to review the process material. How much time you spend in the creative section is your call.
Of course,the more you put in, the more you get out, as with any learning experience.
My aim is to make TWELVTY as much fun as possible, I’ll give you prompts and ideas to play with at the start of the color, we have photo challenges and games to play through the year as well, so there will always be plenty to choose from.
There’s a guided project that runs throughout the program. In each segment I’ll show you what I’m making, playing with different mixed media techniques including collage, mark making with paint, print, ink, drawing and doodles, some stitching and textile elements, we might even dye some paper! Lots of ideas!
At the end of the individual color segments we have time to reflect on the process, consolidate what we’ve made and share what we’ve learned through the experience.
What do we make?
Ooh! I’m glad you asked – this is the new exciting part 😀 We’re making a 3D color wheel!
What’s a 3D color wheel? What’s it for?
Well, I don’t want to totally give the game away, but if you’ve seen my previous 12 color art journals, you’ll know they get decidedly chunky with all the lovely layers of mixed media and collage and stuff.
That’s what inspired the idea. It’s a bit like a mini art journal. But much more fun!
Once it’s complete you can use this to inspire color combinations for future works of art. It’s a place to explore new techniques, so you can refer back to it when you want to find ideas for a new project. You can keep going back and adding to it too!
I keep my 12 color art journals open by my work table in the studio as a source of reference all the time. They’re both jammed full of all kinds of mixed media, doodles, collage, and experimental techniques and a constant source of ideas to springboard into new projects from. What we’re gonna make in TWELVTY 2018 is like this – only WAY BETTER!!!
What if I don’t want to make a color wheel?
Totally cool. (Although you might change your mind when you see what fun we’re having…)
Seriously, you’ll get loads from TWELVTY without making a color wheel. The core reason for TWELVTY is to have fun, and bring more color into the world around us. If you only used the ebook and online resources, joined the photo challenges, or just hang in the background watching what other folks are making, you’ll still get really good value from the program.
The way TWELVTY is designed, you can take any of the elements and fit them into your own creative practice. You might choose to take on a totally different 12 color project instead!
What else could I do in TWELVTY?
Well, you might like to make a regular art journal, with single coloured spreads for each segment. I’ve done this twice already (I’ll share my pages & the process from each as we go along – but I’ve got flip throughs in my youTubes over here).I love both these books! A few of the TWELVTY 2017 group have made art journals and they are all fabulous.
You might want to do something totally different and make a 12 part body of art work featuring each color. This could be
A series of photographs or drawings.
You could make a vlog about each color, showing where you find it and how it makes you feel.
You could write a poem inspired by thoughts on each color
Or paint a landscape through the seasons and times of day showing color changes.
Really – anything you can do in color you can do in TWELVTY! how about cake decorating? I’d love if you made 12 cakes through TWELVTY, iced them in the 12 colors and showed us photos!
This year we had a Twelveteer make a prayer flag in each color, and these are just awesome! I strongly encourage you to find a process you want to explore in different colors 🙂
Color is everywhere: the ONLY LIMIT is your imagination!
What do I need for TWELVTY?
Is there an art supplies list? Do I have to get loads of new stuff?
I’m a big proponent of using what we already have.Firstly so we don’t get freaked out with the expense/bewildering variety of art supplies. Mainly cos I like the way it stretches the creative muscle to be inventive.
I use a range of different paints and media which I’ve spent a lifetime collecting. I also use a load of recycled and reclaimed materials – scraps of paper and card, old magazines and junk mail, offcuts of fabric and trimmings… packaging I don’t want to end up in landfill often winds its way into my art!
There’ll be a comprehensive list of suggestedsupplies in the welcome pack, and I’ll explain how we’ll use them so you can make up your mind if you need to get anything extra.
The minimumyou’ll need to play along is some paper, and the three primary colors: yellow, red & blue. This can be acrylic paint, craft paint, poster paint, watercolor, or it could be crayons or markers, or coloured paper to collage, any combination of these.
(That said, if you’re asking permission to run around the art store squealing Woohoo – new project – gotta get me all the new colors!! And it’s not gonna get you in trouble with the grown ups in your life or your bank account then go right ahead!)
Is there anything else you’re still wondering about? In my giddy excitement did I forget to answer your question? Comment below or message me if there’s anything else you’d like to know!
To be first to hear about my colorful antics and get discounts on courses like TWELVTY , just hop onto my email list right here.
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
Your email is utterly safe to me. I’ll sing it to sleep when it lands with me, and bring it tea when it wakes up.
Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.
Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.
(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)
Some lifetimes ago, a sixteen year old version of me failed to get the place in art school that she’d pinned all her early hopes to.
Dismissed by the grown ups who’d repeatedly explained: ‘being an artist isn’t realistic’ led to years floating adrift from my calling.
(They were wrong. And this isn’t what I do, I’ve come to realise, it’s what I am)
A few years ago, rattled by some mid-life reminders of mortality,I finally fulfilled my life long ambition. But being an art student was as far as I’d thought this plan through. After spinning around in a self made feedback loop of regret for two decades, while I loved my time at college, I’d completely lost sight of the purpose.
My confusion was confounded when my course was cancelled after the foundation year. Before I’d time to consider my options my personal life fell apart, as a few weeks later my mum died.
Now I was free falling and had to find something to grasp onto, something simple I could rely on to slow the descent.
I needed a project to latch my focus to. I needed a subject I could immerse myself in. It had to be something creative, it had to be something colourful.
It just had to be color.
I hadn’t the bandwidth for anything more complex. I needed colors, but one at a time. No other rules. Just me, a book, and whatever paints and pens and things I had to hand. In just one color. I began with the color I felt most drawn to at the time, which was red-violet, magenta. It was soothing. It was all I had space for.
I took that year, one color at a time, one month at a time.
After another family bereavement a couple of months into my year long color project, I knew I needed some accountability, some way to keep this project afloat.That’s when I started this blog.
By the end of the year I’d created a this whole book full of color.
It’s still with me in my studio as a resource for inspiration – (that’s something I didn’t foresee when I began this project.)
As I showed my book of 12 colors to more of my artist friends, the idea of revisiting a year full of color began to develop. And they wanted in on it too.
So in 2017 I invented “TWELVTY“, a way of sharing the adventure around the color wheel with other creatives as an online program.
It’s been an astonishing journey, (which isn’t over yet) and I’ve learned so much (more on that in another post).
I didn’t expect to run Twelvty as a program with others again after this year – it’s been all consuming and I had other plans for 2018 – but Twelvty has plans for me too, it would appear.
I think it speaks for itself that some of this year’s Twelveteers have already joined up for a second trip around the color wheel in 2018!
There are a limited number of discounted places available to folks on my mailing list. If you aren’t signed up already – what the hey?!! – scoot down to the end of this post to add your email before they’re all swooped up!
This is my Inktober inspired Sketchbook Project for Twelvty 2018: Three ideas smooshed together between the covers of a 5 x 7 inch book which will be the springboard into a new adventure for next year.
……..this is a story that began in July……..
Part One: The Sketchbook Project
The Sketchbook Projectis just as the name suggests. It’s a collaborative art project, and it’s enormous. It’s 36,130 artists’ books contributed by creative people from 135+ countries over 11 years. In 2018it will contain at least one more, and that will bemy one.
My book arrived in the mail on Monday 31 July, straight away I set to work on doodling a first page with my initial thoughts and ideas:
Contented that I’d made my first mark, I set the book aside while I waited for the ideas to formulate. Then I got sick, and was away from my life for a while. The up-side to hospital-strength pain relief is that although I wasn’t able to create anything for a while, the visual ideas flooding my brain were far beyond what my usual imagination can conjure, and I’ve still got a solid grasp on what I saw inside my head.
Yes, they were colourful. (more on that in part three).
………. now let’s fast forward to September……….
Part two: Inktober
Inktober is an annual ink drawing challenge held online every October. Again, the clue is in the title.
I was dithering as to whether I’d participate this year, historically I’ve been rubbish at commitment. Is this a good reason not to play along? That’s what I was pondering on n off through September.
Until I hit upon the way my three ideas perfectly fit together.
Ink drawings are the scaffolding for the content of my sketchbook project – the top layer of which I’ll explain in part three – combining to make real what my muddled little opiated brain saw in hospital. And leading me into a project I’m planning for 2018!
“OHMYGOSH IT’S LOOKING A LOT LIKE A PLAN OF ACTION”
…………. now fast forward to October 1st……..
Today began page one of the sketchbook, #inktober doodle number one, a commentary on my thought process as the project reveals itself to me. It’s all quite meta.
Black and white drawings are all well and good, as they form the scaffolding for the content of my sketchbook, but in order for it to be ‘me’ it needs some color, right? Of course it does.
……. Which brings me to ……
Part three: TWELVTY 2018
“Twelvty“ is the environment in which almost all my art has evolved this year: With each month a new color – as conveniently there are 12 colors in the color wheel if you count the tertiaries (which are by far my favs) – this perfectly fits one year.
complementary colors: opposites in the color wheel
An aspect of this color wheel journey I’ve enjoyed exploring more deeply this year is the ways that each color fits in amid its neighbours; how they interact. How they dance.
I’ve developed a real fascination with balancing the pairs and groups of colors – the complementaries, the triadic groups…
This is something I intend to explore more thoroughly in a second variation of Twelvty in 2018.
This is also the way I plan to add color to the Inktober doodlings in the sketchbook project book.
The Plan:
So there we have it: The doodles and drawings of Inktober will form the structure of my vision for the sketchbook.
In November I’ll add the colours, which will be the pairs and threesomes of color theory illustrating the beauty of the color wheel.
This in turn will be the visualisation of a new program all about color balancing for the new year.
YIKES!
I’ll tell you more about these 2018 incarnations of Twelvty at a future date. Meanwhile I’ve got important doodles to do!
Be sure to get on my mailing list if you’re even a little bit interested in finding out more about TWELVTY 2018 cos there’ll be special deals for folks on my list!
Last year I had the great pleasure of producing an online class for 21 Secrets all about color.(If you know my art – you’ll know this is my thing!)
In the class I teach you how to make a really fun variation on a color wheel, using collage and mixed media painting techniques, to inspire new ways of combining colors in your mixed media art. This would be fab as a school holiday project for creative little ones!
And another 23 teachers (yes – this time there are more than the usual 21) share how they use color in their art.
(By purchasing through the links in this post, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
All through this summer I’m offering a special discount in my Etsy Shop to all the folks on my mailing list – so clickety-hop aboard today if you want to snag a bargain!
(and I’ll send you my ebook A Year full of Color as a thank you for joining)
This week I joined in the 21 day painting challenge from Dirtyfootprints Studio #21emBODY which runs up to the start of the new 21 Secrets release which is – you guessed it – called emBODY.
Everyday there’s a prompt. I love this kinda thing!Some direction to my art practice, no pressure, dip in and out as time allows.
I bought a new sketchbook especially for this!
Yay!
But this isn’t just a painting challenge for me.
It’s got an edge of something a wee bit more challenging for me. Not just that I don’t usually paint ‘real’ things.
No, that’s not the big part of the challenge for me.
Here’s a thing you might not know about me: I am super squeamish. Like, properly, pathetically so.
Like all of us, I’m custodian of a human body for the duration of this life. It’s got the usual collection of giblets – sorry – offal – no, wait, what is it … organs. (see, I joke, but I don’t like to even type about the squishy oozing mechanics of the insides).
I’m massively blessed that mine are well behaved and seem to get on with doing their thing without much active attention from me. For this I am, massively grateful. Massively. Thank you, insides.
Nonetheless, it would be very helpful to get over these squeams, so I’m taking this on as a project, as much to befriend my insides, as to practice my art.
The challenge began on Monday with lungs.
Oooh err… *slight swooning… *
With a loose sense of the geography of a lung… it’s like a cross between broccoli and a sponge, right? Fractal-like, branches branching off branches off branches….
I ventured into Google image search with some trepidation. Certain it understood I wanted lung diagrams for reference, not a screen full of redness, people-meat and horror.
Here’s how my ‘lungs’ came out… it was fun. Yup – progressing from something a bit like the diagram quickly into upside down ears, a butterfly, filled with upside down trees, sea monsters, more swirls… and many layers of color. Here are my evolving lungs:
Ok…Onto the heart next. Question is, do I look for another medical diagram, or do I bale and do something
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Well, I don’t want to totally give the game away, but if you’ve seen my previous 
Mixy's Art Blog 