Mixy's Art Blog

which color?

If you only had one color to use, which would it be?

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Or how about just two or three? Do you find you have a handful of colors that you tend to stick with? The colors your comfort zone is decorated in?

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Ever fancied straying outside this palette but not known where to begin? How about an encouraging nudge to open up a wealth of new opportunities, or a little tweak to liven up your regular practice?

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Well folks, that’s right where I can help you!

In just a couple of weeks the new 21 Secrets COLOR COLOR COLOR! program is launched, where I and another fab 23 teachers take you into our creative world to share some color inspiration.

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If you’re intrigued at the thought of tuning up the range of colors you use, or joining in some fun exercises and projects involving looking at color in a new way:

* CLICK RIGHT HERE *
to sign yourself up for a feast of delicious colorfulness!

My class “Take Nine” explores new ways to combine a simple palette of the primaries, secondaries with three neutral shades, and then sets you up with lots of exciting ideas to develop from here!

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In the interests of full disclosure this posts contains affiliate links: at no extra cost to the customer I receive a small commission on sales of the 21 Secrets Fall 2016 program made through this post. Big thanks in advance if you choose to join in here

living the dream

So you know how it was such a long held wish to visit the US… from early little me watching TV through growing up with the music and the movies and all that hype … through to a growing realisation the place is enormous and a long way away.

And then a number of years later, I arrived.

A friend said today how it was curious to see America through my eyes.

Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Mango Astronaut Ale. (No, I didn’t)

There are things I see as foreign, despite the similarities between the US & UK, it’s subtle nuances, things I knew about from TV but have never seen in real life. It feels like I’ve slipped through a portal to a parallel universe in which I shrunk back to child sized in relation to my surroundings. And with mountains. Actual mountains. With actual snow on them!

Mount Rainier National Park (saving this for next trip, image courtesy of the internets, I could see it but only filtered through a bit of cloud)

In my three week adventure I covered almost 12,000 miles, through 8 states, and met some really wonderful people.

I’ve been home about a day and a half and gradually processing and decompressing from the gazillions of new experiences. I came back with upward of 42 GB of video and photos … some edits required, then I’ll show you some of my adventurings!

Happy landings, shininess

a few days ago I landed in Seattle, and I fell in love with the place.

Not least for the Seattle Center which includes the Experience Music Project – the EMP Museum – the most amazingly shiny building I’ve ever encountered – which I spent a good hour or so just circling and photographing while oohing and ahing.

Designed by Frank O Gehry, this extraordinary building has colours that seem to shift as you walk round, and the wobbly surface make for funky reflections. Get these…

And Chihuly Garden and Glass —oh my days!! —If you’re like me and get giddy on shiny things, this is a place that will make your heart sing!

Check back soon — I’ll post up the pics from there once I’ve filtered through them. (I took approx a gazillionty-hundred-and-twelve… watch this space!!)

jumping!

I’m taking a big jump into the unknown this week!

Since I was a little thing I’ve dreamed of visiting the USA. That magical place I saw on TV. Over the subsequent years I’ve made some half baked plans, but now it’s actually going to happen! The spirit of seven year old me is going to meet Mork & Mindy, along with all the accumulated wishes and hopes of every version of me that’s existed since then. (should I pack more clothes? – that’s a lot of us)

I’m going to meet up with some very dear (until now online) friends while I’m there, and I’m truly in bits with anticipation at this!

In the hope to soak in as much as I can in my couple of weeks I’ve planned a cross country trip by train to see as much as I can, so I’ll be whizzing through seven states in all.

I’ll keep you posted along the way – as time and wifi permits – and I’ll take some photos for you too! 😉

Big love, dear pals X

knowing when

I’ve heard it said the key to painting is knowing when to stop.

Conversely, it’s also important (to my mind) to know when to keep going.

How many abandoned sketches and paintings are there in the world? I would guess a great many more than those that finished (or past that point).

My current art journal is teaching me this more than I already knew.

The nature of dipping in and out of a book means most of the pages are, for a long time, just scraps of whims, streaks of paint, isolated doodles and jottings. And they are quite loud and ugly.

In a book of no intrinsic value, it means nothing to open it up and find a space to wipe off my paint brush, to test out an old pen, to blurt and vent some spleen. A dumping ground for bits of thing laying scattered on my work table. Cut outs and scraps, they all go in.

Nothing to lose. Some would argue (shhh — they don’t understand), nothing to be gained.

We know different, right?

Again I remember, how it’s all a metaphor for life. Keep pushing through, it’s ugly now but keep going, it’s a phase. If you have that strength of belief to carry you through it can come good.

At no point in this process do I have an idea of finished – what it will look like or when it may happen. (or if… tbh there’s always an if)

Then I catch a little corner, in my eye or my camera, and I know it will be ok.

Squirrelling, Busying & some Re-jig.

Hi folks, I hope you’re enjoying your summer (or winter to those who reside on the other side of this little blue ball).

What’s new with you? I’ve been busy squirrelling away on so many things and I haven’t been over here in wordpress world to share them with you.

I’ve been preparing my class I’m teaching in the 21 Secrets online program that’s out for pre-sale now, releasing in September. That kept me reeeeally busy for a while! I’ll show you some little snips of it here and there pre-launch – like this…………..

Ooooh! All those colors!!

AND busy busily busying art journalling as usual, but not in my usual fashion. <GASP!>

I believe it’s good to shake stuff up, re-jig, re-orient and sometimes reinvent ourselves. The world and its contents keep evolving and the only alternative is stagnation. And that’s no fun at all. Uck!

Art-journal-wise I’ve shaken things up this time. No nice new sketchbook, no repurposed new book, this was a tatty old ledger I found in among my dad’s old papers and desk whatnots, boxed away for years in storage. From the pencilled pre-decimal price inside the back cover I would date it around 1950-something. About a third of the pages had been torn out, the remainder were a little yellowed, but blank. Fresh for painting and collaging and doodling and whatevering all over.

My usual strategy is to progress page by page as one finishes I flip the page and start again.

This time I’ve been opening the book randomly and splashing, doodling, writing and out-pouring with no regard to any sense of the linear.

If you’re in a rut, this is a great shake up. As a process it ripples out into life as little shifts make dramatic differences.

In the case of an art journal, it meant for a few weeks there was nothing aesthetically worth sharing, all oddments of scribble, stark paint scrapings, lonely fragments.

Then all of a sudden faces started to emerge

The pages are filling up and feeling closer to completed. Coherency emerges.

This is the third journal I’ve been working in this year and they appear to be following the seasons, this one fully in the season of summer.

A few weeks time I’ll be ready to begin my book of autumn, I’m already looking forward to that.

21 Secrets!

If you’re an art journaler or a mixed media artist who follows what’s new online, you almost certainly know what I mean by 21 SECRETS.

I’m thrilled to bits to announce that in the fall 2016 program, I’m joining the 21 Secrets family as a teacher!

Twice a year Dirtyfootprints Studio release a brand new 21 Secrets program, where 21 teachers from around the world offer some of their secrets – their style, techniques, methods and wisdom – in the form of an online lesson. These are bundled together in a 150+ page downloadable eBook ﬁlled with 25+ hours of videos, full colored photos & templates. And you can join the gorgeous community who gather in the 21 Secrets facebook group to share their art and ideas. There’s no time limit on the program – once you buy it it’s yours to download forever!

All this is available for the amazing value of $98

The next 21 secrets comes out 26 September 2016, and I would like to invite you to The Early Bird Sale starting 3am PST on Wednesday, August 17th and closing at 12am PST on Saturday, August 20th.

The Early Bird Sale is a discount of $10 when you use Coupon Code COLOR

This time round there’s the added bonus that there are 24 teachers!

Reinvention

A few years ago I created a year long project, dedicating each month to a single colour. Beginning in January with red/purple – that gorgeous magenta I keep falling back into – I cycled my way month by month through the primary/secondary/tertiary colours, ending the year in Red.

Ever since I’ve had the desire to follow up on this and reinvent the idea.

So while I haven’t been over here in the world of Ephemeral-Gecko-ing, I’ve been busying myself on a new project ….but you will have to wait until tomorrow for all the details….

Meanwhile, here’s what the 12 colours in 12 months adventure looked like:

The more you look…

…the more you see.

Have you ever been on a color hunt? You can do it right now – pick a color and look around you, as soon as you choose to see, it pops up all over the place. I went looking for primaries in the everyday everythings…