 It's Rebecca from Art Risen here with another talented artist, and we have Jillian Scheldt in the house. Welcome. Thank you And so Jillian you are an artist of many talents. You do mixed media. You do textile that is fabric for anybody that doesn't know And so what are you gonna show us today? I'm gonna show you a mixed media piece Using fabric. Okay. Well, I'm excited. Show us what you got. Thank you So let's get started. I'll tell you a little bit about what you need and Where I get my things. So I'm making two pieces today I'm kind of worried about this because when I'm at home I Work on five or six or seven pieces at the same time and I do that because then I'm not committed I'm not sort of struggling on my little eight by eight panel that it has to work out perfectly, but today For you, we're doing two pieces and we'll keep our fingers crossed that they work out So these are cradled wood panels which you can get at Michaels or your local craft store you can order them online and I use wood panels because for two reasons the resin works really well and we're gonna get to resin later on but also I love the wood grain and I use the wood grain in my pieces I like to either stain it so you see some of the darker wood grain or I like the way that the paint and the dyes work and they spread on wood. So that's what I use to start off with For today, I've got just paint that you can buy I tend to mix a lot of paint at home, but for today, these are colors that you can buy off the shelf. I Also don't only use expensive paint. This is like the cheap paint This is the paint. Maybe your kids are able to use at your house. So I do use that. I like to have Different values different consistencies. I like a lot of movement in my mix-muted pieces Just assorted paintbrushes palette knife spray bottle I love working with water and spray and I like to experiment to see how paint sort of spreads On the canvas. I also use dyes. I'm a fabric artist and I like the way dyes actually work in the wood I like the way dyes work with materials, but this one this isn't dye. I actually this is premixed this at home this is Paint that I've added a lot of water to and again all of these things will do different things on the canvas When I'm at home, I'm usually working on five or six or seven canvases So that I don't get too tied down onto what one of them looks like So I put paint on I you know and then I go to bed and I wake up and it's a fresh eyes And I can see where I'm at and move on with that. So let's start now. You have to remember I'm an interpretive artist. So I don't get too bogged down about you know What it's gonna look like putting the paint down. So we're starting with some basic steps But I encourage you to experiment. That's the best way to start and I experiment all the time So I'm starting with this is Golden paint. So this is I'm just adding some into my cup my cups I'm gonna put this here because I want it to be not quite as thick as some of the other paints that I'm going to use on the canvas So all I do is add water You can add a little bit you can see how it goes But again, I love to experiment as an you know when I'm doing abstract Which I really like to do I start with you know first layer and like in nature So in nature you got a whole bunch of different layers You've got you know the ground and the moss and the rocks and this is what we're doing here So grab a paintbrush. Now my paint brushes some are really really expensive some aren't so much That's the way I like to work some artists are different But I have my favorites, but then I flip flop back and forth. So I'm just mixing it Sometimes I leave lumps in it. Sometimes I don't we'll see what happens. Okay So let's see what we get when we put it on the canvas. So I'm gonna start just laying the paint down and see what happens You can see I've got you know, I'm turning the brush. Okay, so that's maybe step one Step two, maybe we're gonna add Little bit of water. Let's see what happens Step three the pre-mixed paint that I was talking about. Let's add some see what happens Now some of that dye. This is a turquoise. I think that I want a little bit of Color contrast, so I'm gonna add a navy blue. I'm just gonna add So I don't really know where I'm going yet, but I'm gonna let this See what happens. I'm gonna leave it for a bit. Um, actually I'm seeing that maybe I want to Pull some of this color. Who knows? Who knows? So we're now we're gonna try something different on the other one I think that I'm going to just take some paints and I'm going to put them on to the canvas Let me see. So we've got green Or sorry, we've got blue. Let's go for a Teal Let's add a crazy. This is my this is my all-time favorite paint It reminds me of the forest and of the trees. It's called Jenkins green So you can use a palette knife, but like I said, I use stuff from around my house as well Cardboard this is art resin packing cardboard, but I think it works really well You can cut it to the You know the the shape and size you want and then Oh, this is cool. So look at that. I've got some really cool patterns happening in here Like I said, it's all an experimentation Okay There we go So a little bit left on there We'll see what happens I think I've decided I'm going to use this and we'll we'll get some movement Down here as well There we go. We'll see what happens. Okay. So I'm looking at this one. I don't Totally love it. So I'm going to take a palette knife and So to see what happens I you know, I liked the cardboard, but I think that it looked a little bit too perfect I draw my inspiration from nature Nothing in nature is perfect So I'm seeing maybe I want a little more contrast Back to my amazing Jenkins green And don't get too bogged down because you might find that once it dries you want to add more color That's the beauty of doing it this way is you can add as much color as you would like And you can keep going now back to the other one Okay, I don't There we go That that navy blue is really blue. So I think I'm going to scrape a little this A little bit of this away here. Let me just do this Let's scrape some away Oh, look at that. That's very cool. I got some cool things happening Okay. Yes artist hands. They're always full of paint And then I'm going to go back and the cool thing about these cups And a little more water so that it moves a little bit more But I use these recycled cups. They've got this great edge on them And the edge allows me to to pour the paint in a way that Has a little bit of an edge Okay, so Maybe I'll add a couple more drops of this guy in here There we go. So now I'm starting to see already Look, we've got a little bit of a green sky happening. Now. Yeah, I know skies aren't green but Work with me here. We'll uh, we'll add some clouds and it'll it'll work well and this one, you know When I stand back. I'm starting to see some rocks and I'm maybe seeing some Lake in the bottom. So what we need to do now is let these dry First layer we can add lots more don't stress too much about it. We'll let it dry I'll wash my hands and we'll move on Okay, so the other one's drying I'm not happy with where we're at with this one. So we're going to add some more So remember I told you about the cheap paint. I'm going to add some clouds into my green sky the crazy green sky. So I need to And the reason I'm doing this wet is uh, I like what happens when I add some paint into the wet There we go. We've got some I've got some more clouds I've decided that this is a scenery. I've decided that the bottom looks like a lake, but I want to add Some clouds here to the mix One thing to remember for me. Anyway as an artist is you've got to have contrast. It's got to be light. There has to be dark And so I'm adding one corner of this is going to be only white paint Then let's let's see what happens if I add a couple drops of blue into this There we go Let's see more white But it's yeah, it's starting to take shape. They look a little more realistic I'm an interpretive artist. So really, you know, we sort of we start to go with the flow and see what we come up with Okay, again still don't love it. Let's add some more dye Oh Oh, see got some cool stuff happening here. I kind of like that. Let's leave it Let's not okay. So the other thing is you can sometimes overwork things at home. Uh, I'll often sit on the couch I'll say to my husband. Okay. Just going to go throw some paint I put some paint down and I walk away and who knows? Oh, look at it's got some really cool things happening in here Oh, okay. I can't resist. I'm going to add a couple more drops because I like what's going on there Okay, now we leave it. We walk away This is really cool. What's happening? So the white paint and it's the cheap white paint is reacting with the dye and It really looks like the sky and the clouds are moving I mean, I'm starting to see that this is this might end up being a darker piece with movement in the clouds I'm adding some more because I love how it's moving and and this this would happen on a Painting canvas as well, but I really like the wood board. Um, I like how it seeps into the grains of the board So who knows where we're going to go with this now Okay, so we've got two things that have happened one We left the pieces outside in the beautiful sun with a little bit of wind to dry and a thunderstorm happened and so It changed them a bit The second thing that happened is that we can work with it. We can work with it. So It's a happy little accident as Bob Ross would say and What I can do to fix one of them. So let me show you This one's got, you know, first of all my thumb marks And a little bit too much blue But one of the cool things about working on a wood panel is that you could also sand off some of the things You don't like so There you go I can sand off some of the blue that happened as a result of the thunderstorm And I can lighten things up a little bit here with My sandpaper again You know 80 grit 100 grit I don't worry too too much about it because art resin is an amazing product and spills in all the cracks and and all the crevices so All I've done here is taken off what I don't like. So there we go. I've used my sandpaper. I've taken off Some of the accidents to create more happy little accidents. I don't know. Anyway onward and upward So the next thing I like to do and again, I've talked about layers is to add material I'm a textile and mixed media artist, but what resin does to material is just glorious. It actually deepens the colors and So what it happened, you know when I mix acrylic paint And the textile together the effects are that you've got depth in in your piece So I've got some material here There's a lot of material in our world. So I try to use recycled material This is an old blouse This is an old skirt. I mean some of it I buy some of it I use but it's nice to use different kinds of material different weights of material This piece actually You can see through it a little bit more so it adds a different effect So what I need to do now is look at my pieces and and decide You know, is it a scenery and I I mean I tend to gravitate to rocks and trees and scenery So that's what I'm going to be working with here So for I'm looking at materials here and I'm thinking okay This this piece probably works more with the color scheme in there and let's do something I think I'll go over there And then something a little more fun and bold on the other ones. I do like polka dots So then what I'm going to do Is cut out forms now the thing about cutting out forms if you go and look at a tree No tree is perfect. If you go look at a mountain rocks Nothing is perfect. So I don't get too too bogged down in shapes and how So I've cut it and I'm now laying it down So all I'm doing at this point is putting the material onto the canvas I'm Sort of adding so these are going to be Mountains or hills or I don't know and I have the freedom to move it around. I can take some other colors I think actually this piece has a little bit of purple in it. I like that So I'm going to take some of this Oh And the the piece sort of comes together as as you're working. I find it anyway We go so I've got some color in there You know and and you have the you have the option here as if you don't like it lift it up pull it away Um now there's green up in the sky and sort of in the background There's none in the foreground, but I'm going to be able to add some of those colors now with acrylic paint. So Let me think I think I need a little bit more color in this piece here Okay, now I'm going to move on to the other one. I'm going to be a little bit different Uh, I'm going to be a little bit more abstract in this one That's the happy little accident that uh happened as a result of the thunderstorm The the original piece if you uh have been watching throughout Had a lot more blue that ran off with all of the rain But if I add some real different abstract pieces, we'll see where we go with this So as I'm doing this you are probably looking at it upside down. So wait till you see when it's right side up So there's some random shapes that I'm going to add there This this piece of material is really great because it's got so many different tones and I'm I'm knowing so one way one thing that you can do if you sort of are starting off Wet your material. You're going to see what it looks like when it's got resin I've done this long enough that I know that it's going to be deeper and darker and that You know that kind of contrast is really going to work well Okay, so Okay, so It it looks pretty good So the next thing is we're going to add the glue because we have to get these stuck down in order to add the epoxy resin so I use Elmer's glue I put my glue into Little recycled applesauce cups and I do add some water. So then you sort of need to mix this around So that it's it, you know, it's not quite as thick as regular glue then I wet the pieces of material. So this is a good point where you can also go Oh, you know, I like the way that looks. I don't like the way that looks and the only reason I wet them Is it makes it easier to saturate them with the Elmer's glue so that they're really stuck down So this is sort of like any if anyone did modge podge when they were younger have worked with modge podge This is what we're doing here. We're just sticking them down Now I'm not worrying if it if if as I'm doing this a little piece hangs off the edge You really you really really can just cut it right off. But there you go. So I've got one piece And it's ready to go Now I'm going to Wet these pieces just so they you know, just so they sort of lay down a little flatter And then I'm going to saturate them With the glue so that they stick down and really this is this is something I I've learned Over time if you've got any little corners and things sticking up. It's great. It adds texture But if you're doing, you know a shallow layer of the epoxy resin Those little corners and things are going to stick up So you'll either have to like it the way it is with the corner sticking up or you'll have to pour a second Layer of epoxy. So I mean that's your artistic choice. But this is this is the way that I have come to Make sure that everything's stuck down now. It's really neat here I've got some of the the frayed edges of the material and that gives it a you know a more organic feel and then I'll start to add The acrylic paint and make this look a little bit more realistic So now I'm going to add the acrylic paint and I I do like to focus now on on one at a time because I'm going to add Layers and shadows and more texture. So I'm going to get rid of this guy And I'm going to work On this one for the next little bit Okay, so this is where I want to add a little bit of contrast and make this whole thing come to life So I'm seeing that it's kind of dark. So I've got some lighter paints here that I'm going to add onto the canvas Let me just see what brush I want to use Okay, so let's see So I'm uh, I'm in a I'm in a line line phase Where a lot of my pieces have lots of lines and I mean this came from Walking our brand new dog and looking at the lines and the contours of the rock But I think that once you start adding some of this color contrast and depth the whole thing will come to life And so I do add paint onto the material Because you really don't want your piece to look like you've got a whole slap of material onto Your final piece you want it to look like it all works together and blends together. So And I still have left some of the wood there. I like the idea of the wood being there And some of the places are still wet. So I I'm still Using the how the paint is running and I'm using that to my advantage As I'm as I'm adding more and more texture to this piece Now remember I started off not really knowing where I was going with this and it's I I think it's sort of coming together as we sort of add color And contrast really like what's happening here Okay, now the the not so expensive paint remember I told you about that I think I need a couple of trees way back here And yes, I put my paintbrush right into it It's inexpensive paint. I'm not so so concerned about how it's gonna You know if there's a little bit of white in my black. It all works out for me in the end Although I have said when I've taught other classes Perhaps if if you know you were in an art class, this would not be the way to do things but It's the way I do things Okay, so we're adding more now. I'm adding some black here I tend to I tend to often have black in my pieces. It sort of grounds them in a way Really, we've just got a few little trees back here Going on once this is epoxy though all of these colors jump and okay, so I've got the This going on we've got more lines Probably I think this is is close to being done. What I probably will do now is Set this aside And come back to it and think Do I need more? Do I need a bigger tree? Actually, no, I'm lying to you I'm already seeing it needs a little bit more just when I take a step back The other thing is I don't know I don't get too bogged down even about tree shapes I hold my brush very lightly and then sort of just Go for it and those little movements. Yeah, I don't know. I think they add character and To the piece Okay I said I was done and here I am still painting. Okay, so let's stop here I'm going to set it aside and I'm going to work on the other one for a second Okay, look I'm adding more I stepped away and realized I didn't like the balance So I'm going to add some more in here I do tend to step away often for you know a more than one day I you know, it's important It's for me Anyway, the way I work is I step away and then I come back and I look at it in a whole new It's a different light different different frame of mind And then I can decide whether okay. Am I happy with it? This is a tiny little piece and really I can tell you that once the epoxy goes on this It's going to be absolutely Incredible the colors will just jump off, but just want to make sure okay. Okay. Now I'm walking away Okay We're ready to work on the other one This one needs a little more work. I think I have to go back and fix the clouds that the The irony in that one that the rainstorm wrecked so I'm going to go and Add a little bit more white up at the top for the clouds Okay, and then actually I'm going to use Titan bluff, which actually I really like using because It's a color that is very similar to the wood And so it all for me works together Okay So where are we going with this piece? I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this piece So I will just go for it and see what happens I think I want this piece to be a sort of a little more abstract In in how it looks and Well, there you go another happy little accident. That's going to be part of the tree Okay, now this one I'm probably gonna have to walk away from because I'm not loving what I see here I did like it just isn't It's not flowing for me. It's not working But that's okay. That's okay. We'll keep We'll keep adding paint a little bit. I just think that it's a little contrived So I often will go back and forth and add colors and take colors away and and sometimes remove Some of the material that I put down, which is which is a nice thing. You're not you're not stuck You know, it's just I didn't like that piece there. So I've added I've added some more Okay Lots of concentrating going on here, right the creative juices are flowing How is this going to work and what's it going to look like in the end? And am I going to like it and that's a fun part of art, right? My husband will laugh and say he's like I go through the stages of art And I love it and then I come down and I say absolutely hate it and it's junk and then I come back and Oh, I like it again And so I'm not loving this one everyone just so you know, this is not the favorite piece. I've ever done but Uh, who knows who knows where it'll end up. The cool thing is I've still got This piece of material. So maybe I'm going to add this one back in here It's got the glue on it. So I don't really need to add. Okay. Okay If I if I take a step back, maybe Okay, no, it's not bad. It's not bad I do need to let that dry for a little bit because if I start to work it too much It's just going to get muddy and not so nice. So I'll let it dry for a couple minutes and come back and add some final things Okay, this one is very close to being done I stepped away and decided I needed just a little bit more green in the trees Again, a little bit more contrast So my favorite green, which is Jenkins green, which is the forest green Adds just some of that contrast and actually you probably can't even see it at this point You will be able to see it a little bit more hints of it when we put the epoxy on. So just I'm adding just those small touches At home, I probably would you know step away for a day or so and really make sure that I'm happy with it Like I said, I've often I'll throw paint down and then I step away and then I go back to it This one this one is pretty close to being done and you can see we've really worked with With the shapes that came to be when we first started Putting paint onto this canvas Okay, we're almost done here a bit of highlights on the tree Highlights on the tree We're close to being ready to epoxy on this guy Now remember I said you can cut off these side pieces So then to prepare this for epoxy I like to paint the sides black So all I'm doing is taking my black paint and I just think it finishes the the edges better and it makes it look more professional. Some people prefer to hang these pieces a little more contemporary without a frame. So I Finish all of the edges In black. Okay, so that guy's done I shouldn't put it down like that Okay, that guy's done. Okay This one I am struggling with I don't love it. It's it's got too much. There's too much going on. So What if I take the material off Okay What if I sort of rethink this I like the idea of having A tree a big strong pine tree in the middle of it What if I use the white As an accent and go in Actually, maybe and add The green of the tree So what's happened here and I I I really do work in layers and as an artist What's happening here is that the white that I put down is going to be a little bit of an accent It's going to shadow an accent whatever you want to call it for sweeping sweeping White pine This is coming together and in fact it's It's doing what I had hoped the tree is really There it is starting to pop Okay Now remember I've still got these pieces They can go back in in a different way Maybe now because those already have glue in them. I really just have to wet them again They'll stick down Sometimes it helps if you wet underneath as well Okay, so there I think it's It's okay We're we're we're starting to have make a little more progress with this and what's really neat is I you know I had a piece of material here. I decided to take it away So now I've got a line that I didn't have before Which I quite like use that line to my advantage Think we're good What we have to do is again Start to think about the edges So I'm going to do black on the edges for this one too and we're ready to epoxy Of course, I have been known to go back and fix things Even before the epoxy And I have been known to fix things after the epoxy because one of the neat things about epoxy is you can paint on top of it And so you can also go and fix and then just add another layer So I'm not going to lie this one's not my favorite But it's interesting I have sold A number of pieces that aren't my favorite So I'm going to leave it. I don't want to overwork it I think it I think it's good and I know that when I add the epoxy resin It's really going to jump the each of the colors and everything so I think We're ready to go with the epoxy Okay, we're almost ready to put the resin on But one of these has got a little piece that's lifted up So that's an easy fix and go back whoops go back to the glue and I have to be honest. I use my fingers for this but because you just have to make sure That everything is stuck down It's otherwise I mean unless that's the look you're going for it's going to be very hard to resin In fact, it it's really hard to resin something that's up because you might get a bubble underneath or Okay, so there you go There now it's stuck and we're ready to epoxy So gloves, of course gloves, of course So we don't have to mix a lot of epoxy for Two small places like this If you buy the art resin you can go to their website and they've got an awesome calculator Which we always use when we're doing bigger pieces It's really important because you don't want too much. You don't want too little But I mean if I have too much I often have other projects around that I'm able to use So we will start with pouring the epoxy and for this I need glasses So I can see that we pour the right amount Okay, so now I'm going to add the hardener and it doesn't matter which goes first But what does matter is you always put the right cap back onto the right one Because otherwise it's going to be stuck and you won't be able to use the rest of your hardener So I just have to make sure that I'm doing the exact same amount That's kind of a critical thing Okay, so now we're ready to stir And you need to stir for three minutes exactly Remember to scrape down the sides and move the bottom around because you want to make sure that every single bit is stirred in Some people say you have to worry about bubbles. I I really don't worry about the bubbles so much It's just really important that it's mixed thoroughly Okay, the fun part begins. This really is my Absolute favorite part the piece just jumps alive when you pour the resin on So I usually just pour from the center make sure that You've got enough on Now for the smaller pieces I do use my hand to spread the resin for my larger pieces I will either use a foam brush or I use a plastic trowel But for the smaller ones, I mean I am going to have to throw out the gloves. So it's okay. It works that way Okay, now we get to pour the second one You can already see the colors are coming alive So then like I said, I use my hand These are on stilts already And this I call them stilts we call them stilts there, you know They're stands so that they're off the table and I've already taped the back So that the resin isn't going to drip onto the back of the piece And that will make it very easy to take the green painters tape off and we're good to go So I've got the resin out to the edges on this one. I'm going to move on to this piece And then I like to make sure that because we've painted the edges black and remember I was telling you about you know, it being finished professionally It's really important that you've got resin on all of the edges as well And I just use my hand. It's actually I do use my hand on the larger pieces as well Like you can sort of feel and make sure that you've got resin right across the edge Now we'll move on to this one and again, we're going to make sure that we've got resin On the edges so that the piece is finished professionally This one's really neat because because of that rainstorm Some of the green has has seeped up into the sky But remember I said I didn't like this piece. I'm looking at it now with the resin on it And we used a beautiful forest green on the tree And it's almost reflecting into the sky and that was a happy little accident Bob Ross would say because of the rainstorm And the next step is making sure that we get the bubbles out. Now on these smaller pieces, there's not a lot of bubbles Bigger pieces. I have to be a lot more careful and Make sure I sort of babysit the piece for at least an hour to make sure I get the bubbles out But on these smaller pieces, they don't tend to come up as much But the next step is a blow torch to make sure that we get pop all those bubbles So you have to get the bubbles out to get a nice beautiful smooth surface So at home I use a huge blow torch In the studio here you can just use a smaller blow torch and really all you're doing is Back and forth over the surface and popping all the bubbles. It's actually fairly satisfying You can use a toothpick to take out the dust Look at that. Oh, these look fantastic Okay, so the piece that I didn't like I like The green pops The white that I started off with actually gives the piece a little bit of reflection. They both are really They actually there are two pieces that you could put together on a wall Which is you know, it's helpful when you start doing a number of pieces in a row They'll all be similar and then you can put them together So if you see any little dust pieces All you need to do is Take a toothpick and you can While the resin's still wet You can pick it out Again, a good idea is to look at the piece from a whole bunch of different angles on my bigger pieces Sometimes the resin just sort of gets blocked and it it it stays in one circle and there's no resin inside So it's really important to walk around your pieces and make sure that all the resin is Cured properly it looks pretty good Okay, so we've checked and we've double checked we've you know walked back every 15 minutes or so It looks good, but you want to make sure that dust doesn't fall I mean there's dust particles flying around all the time So you want to make sure that there's no dust when you walk away overnight. So what I do at home is Put a box or something A teepee over top of your pieces And we're done So we'll see you tomorrow and We'll have the big reveal Okay, 24 hours later and we're ready for the big reveal drum roll Oh my god, ah, they're fantastic Oh, this is the best part. No, I did say the best part was putting the resin on the second best part is seeing how it turns out This is fantastic. So so so so the Material is a really interesting thing with art resin It it gets darker the colors become more vibrant. So in the one that I hated remember yesterday I wasn't so keen on it the greens with the white underneath Remember I said play play play have fun We played with that yesterday and look at what we've got. So the the the material pops on the other one The dark blue has become this sort of really great indigo blue and um, you know when we tried with the water and The paint was sort of Flowing over top of the canvas it really blended together because of the rain that fell on it yesterday afternoon Don't give up try different things. I mean part of that rain made In particular the green one here the blue sort of ended up in the sky I hadn't planned that but it's sort of a blue green that that works with the tree So don't don't don't give up. I can't wait to show the rest of the art resin crew And you have unified your mixed media so well that I didn't even really realize until you showed me how to do it That there was fabric in there. So well done. It's a sign of a good artist, right? Thank you for coming in. Thank you. You are welcome anytime. Thanks for our resin. Oh, we love them You guys out there can subscribe comment if you have a question for jillian go ahead and tape it in We'll see you next time