Dina Wakley

Dina Wakley: Art Journal Animals - 10 Mixed Media Techniques

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Format
Video Length: 1 Hour 19 Minutes
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Animals can make great focal points in your mixed media and art journal pieces. 

Join Artist Dina Wakley (and student Amy Jones) as Dina dives into the possibilities of mixed media. In this art instruction workshop, Dina builds four art journal pages with animals using tracing, overpainting and stamping. Dina works quickly and she guides you through each project with advice, humor and encouragement. Her motto is “oops oh well” and she wants her students to approach these pieces with a sense of adventure and play. She warns that she is not a fine artist but these techniques would be at home in mixed media pieces outside of your art journal.

Dina teaches four complete projects. Her first project works with stamps, and she shows you how to use watered down acrylics for a watercolor effect. She creates a quick background and adds a piece of hand painted paper with a scalloped edge from another workshop (not shown on this DVD). She talks about auditioning pieces and keeping things simple.  

For her second project Dina over paints an image of a fox. She uses a thin dry brushing technique that allows for the colors and values underneath to shine through. By the end of the project, the fox image no longer looks like a cut out piece of collage but is integrated into the look and feel of the page.

In project three, Dina starts with a fast background. She then uses carbon paper to trace over a photocopy of a mixed media bird from one of her art journals. She transfers the image and then uses Stabilo pencils, paint and stencils to paint out the background and bring the whole piece together.

In her final project, Dina shows you how to paint your own pet in a pop art style. Dina encourages you to use bright colors and gives you tips on where you need to use realistic colors and values so that your piece still reads as a real animal.

About Dina’s Materials
Dina uses her own line of acrylic paints but any heavy bodied acrylics would work with these techniques. She paints mostly on gessoed or non gessoed watercolored paper. She uses Neocolor II Water-soluble crayons, one of her favorite tools, Stabilo Marks-All pencil in black, stencils, and stamps. 

Skill Level
Beginners will find Dina’s clear instruction incredibly useful. She doesn’t spend much time explaining her materials but she says names clearly for any necessary Googling. Intermediate and advanced artists may find new techniques but unless they are curious about something specifically, the techniques may be too simple. All artists will enjoy the pace, and the interplay between Dina and student Amy Jones works in the DVDs favor this time around. Dina is great on camera and there is rarely any over explaining, which keeps the workshop moving forward.