Welcome to

Land, Sea & Sky

5

lesson two: traveler's windy road

I am an avid traveler and I love collecting maps, postcards, receipts, tags and any other special papers from my trips. I especially love to do this when I’m in a foreign country. I don’t know why a dress tag is so much sexier in Italy, but it is. I throw all of these in a big box in my studio whenever I get home, thinking that, someday, I’ll use them.

What about you? Do you have a bunch of papers just waiting to be used? Now’s the time! In this painting, I’ll show you how to layer and use those maps and papers to use as a backdrop for this piece. I just love the element of surprise and seeing parts of maps or pages that peek through can make the painting much more exciting.

traveler's Windy road - introduction

digital maps and resources

Antique Maps Digital Paper - $2.38 DigitalCurio

Maps Digital Paper - $4.00 LeskasDigitals

Vintage Maps Digital Paper, Grey - $3.99 blossompaperart

Vintage Maps Digital Paper - $2.61 Retrowalldecor

Vintage Maps - $1.80 ZephyrDigital

Vintage World Maps - $2.66 MagicPaperCrafts

Antique Digital of Scotland, London, Paris, Germany, Italy - $2.75 paperdolldigital

Free Vintage World Maps - I came across this site and loved all of the FREE maps she had for mixed media and crafts.

Gather and Layer: Mixed media/collage is always a three-part process. The first is collecting materials that will make up the background of your canvas. Then it’s laying out the composition on the canvas, and gluing them on. Lastly, you come back over the top to paint your picture or scene. The first step may take a little time because it’s reflective. In order to gather the right materials, you may need to order things online, rip out pages from an old book, or sift through your own shoe box full of travel documents and papers. I’ve included a resource page on where you can order some maps if you don’t have any. Make sure that you have collected more papers than you imagine you’ll use. It’s amazing how fast those papers get used up, especially if you do more than one layer of papers or you rip them into smaller pieces. Pull out your aquavar or gel medium and a throw-away brush. If you just got your nails done, get some latex gloves because this is a messy process!

traveler's Windy road - part 1

Sketch and block in the sky: Next, we will sketch out the scene and paint the sky! Your painting should be completely dry before starting. As always, mix all of your colors before launching into the next step. Choose your conte crayon or stabilo pencil to sketch in the scene and get your paints ready to start painting the clouds and sky.

traveler's Windy road - part 2

Block in the landscape with darks! You have all of your colors mixed and you’re making great progress with the sky. We are ready to start blocking in all of the rest of the colors. Be warned, this is an ugly stage so don’t panic! We have to get all of the darks in before adding all of the fun colors.

traveler's Windy road - part 3

Final Touches:  Now, we headed into the final part of the painting, which is my favorite. Make sure you have a good amount of paint already mixed on your palette as we will pull from some of the lighter colors. Also, just a reminder that you should sign your painting when you are done. You can always put your initials or name on the bottom corner with a permanent marker or water down your paint and use a small brush to paint it on. I hope that you had a fun time with this mixed media piece.

Unfortunately, you are forever ruined as a minimalist. Whenever you travel, you’ll be squirreling away receipts, brochures, maps and other papers from your future trips. Sorry, not sorry! Happy trails!

traveler's Windy road - part 4

Bonus: Take a look at my bonus video on how to spray your painting to protect it best against UV light etc. There are many options out there, but remember they aren’t necessary. If you like the sheen on your piece, you are fine to leave it as is. This is just one more layer of protection for your painting.

Let's continue to lesson three...