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Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads | Ali Hargreaves

20th January 2025 Estimated reading time: 3 mins

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  • If you don’t have Brusho…just use watercolours instead

In praise of mixed media

Mixed media is very exciting and very forgiving! If you make a mistake… you can often cover it up with acrylic paint, pastel or a bit of collage! It’s incredibly exciting and liberating to work with multimedia. Treat every piece as an exercise and then you will feel more relaxed and that’s when “happy accidents” happen and you learn what your media can really do!
I encourage all my students to keep an A4 size sketchbook and put all their experiments in (including failures). Make notes to remind yourself which colours you used, how to do the techniques etc. This becomes the best reference ever because you did it yourself. I hope you enjoy this mixed media tutorial and are tempted to give it a go yourself.

Step 1

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - sketch out your seedheadsDraw out three seed heads lightly with a B pencil (three is a magic number in art….it makes a good balanced composition).

Step 2

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - cut up a credit card for interesting marks
Cut up a credit card into several varying widths and then use the narrowest to print the star shaped ends to your seed heads with the white acrylic paint.
Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - use the credit card to produce curves
Try bending a longer piece of credit card to produce the curves.
Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - let it dry completely
Let this dry completely.

Step 3

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - sprinkle on your brusho crystalsSprinkle your Brusho crystals over the seed heads. Don’t use too much…..a little goes a long way. If you are new to Brusho…I strongly recommend that you practice first!

Step 4

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - activate the brusho with a spritz of waterSpray with a water spray bottle.

Step 5

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - encourage dribbles and interesting marks
Hold it up vertically and spray again to encourage dribbles and until the white paint marks are showing.

Step 6

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - sprinkle salt on your work for more interesting marksWhile still damp…sprinkle grains of table salt from a height of about 10 cm. Again, if you are new to this…experiment until you understand when the time is right. (It must still be damp but not too wet and not dry) Wait for about a minute for the magic to work. It should produce little star-like shapes where the salt has sucked in the colour.

Step 7

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads: splatter white acrylic ink, wet into wetWhile still damp, add splatters of white acrylic ink. (I personally do this by dipping a round brush into the ink and tapping the brush down over another handle.)

Step 8

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - apply a strong tonal contrastEither when dry or still damp add sepia ink along the stalks to make them stand out. This is a strong contrast in tonal values so makes more impact.

Step 9

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - apply frost patterningAdd white ink and spray a little water over the top as this creates the kind of patterns that occur with frost.

Step 10

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - use sprinklit for sparkleIf you’d like to add a bit of sparkle, add the SprinkleIT while still wet.

Step 11

Mixed Media Tutorial: Frosty Seedheads - the finished pieceIt is important to get contrasts in tone (dark and light) If the tonal values aren’t contrasting enough…. add more Brusho or watercolour and then repeat any of the other stages if necessary.
 

Ali Hargreaves is a mixed media artist and tutor, if you’d like see more you can watch Ali on Video on Demand.
Alternatively, visit her:
Website: alisart.co.uk
Facebook: www.alisart.co.uk
Instagram: alisart_alijhargreaves
Youtube: Alisart

Next live workshop
Ali’s next live workshop is on Thursday 29th May at SAA Headquarters
Book now to meet Ali and get lots of tips on mixed media
Book your workshop ticket now

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