My First Mixed Media Collage.

Hello everyone.  Welcome to my blog.

I thought I would share with you my first attempt at a Mixed Media Collage.

 It didn't quite turn out how I envisaged it.  I originally made this for my Grandson's 18th Birthday Card.  His favourite colours are green and black.  I actually wanted the black to start in the lower left hand corner and then to  blend in with the green and gold across the page.  As you can see, that's not how it ended.  You would be amazed, I think, if you knew how many times I gessoed this and then started again.  I think it must have at least 5 or 6 coats of paint on it.  LOL.  I started off with tissue paper and once that was glued down and dried, I added some gauze for extra texture. I then coated it all with gesso for the first time.

I then added some bits of string before attaching the cogs and small screws.

I also glued on some beads and spacers.

Here is a close-up view of the main cluster of cogs.

Again, I added a few beads and spacers and some more screws.

After painting and gessoing and painting and gessoing a few times (I didn't actually count how many) I decided it needed more texture so I hit it randomly with some texture paste.  Gessoed it AGAIN and painted it AGAIN.  (Sigh) ... (Deeper Sigh) LOL

You can see more of the texture in this corner here.

I've allowed some of the metal to show through the paint as well, as you can see above.

The black paint I used is my Acrylic Paint Dabber which I actually brushed on.  The final green coat is Viva Precious Metal in Olive and the Gold is also Viva Precious Metal in Orange Yellow.  I also put a little of the green in a sprayer mixed with a little water and dribbled it onto the page.

In reality, the piece is not quite as dark as it appears in these photos. 

Not sure what I'm going to do with this now as I have actually decided to make a mini album for my Grandson's Birthday so he'll have somewhere to keep all the photos he'll get from his party. 

I have to say though, even if it didn't turn out quite how I wanted it, and even though I've whinged about how often I had to re-do it, I actually had a great deal of fun making this.  I just hope I haven't put anyone else off from giving it a go.  I'll probably hang on to this just as a show and tell piece, and I'm definitely going to try it again, but this time with pretty colours and lots of flowers. YES!!!!

Thank you so much for visiting.  Take care, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

God Bless.

oxox Marg