To mix media or to not mix media...?

For some weird reason, when I started painting at art college I thought mixed media was bad.

I need to clarify.  I was taught it was mediocre.  You were either painting in acrylic or oil.  Using pencil or charcoal.  You were a sculptor or 2D artist.  You couldn't do a mixture of these and you sure as heck weren't supposed to mix them together.

But why...?

I still don't know the answer to this day.

I do know that each lecturer seemed to have a primary focus or skill.  They were usually dedicated to one medium such as oil painting.  They were hired as the oil painting teacher and thats what they did.  They lived and breathed it so they just taught oil painting.  We'd spend an hour or two each day with them then shuffle off to our next class to learn sculpture from another lecturer who was dedicated to only working in their particular medium.

It wasn't until I left art college and started working as a professional illustrator that I even heard about gouache, copic markers or acrylic ink.  And I have to admit I still haven't tried water colours... yet.

In those early years of my business I never mixed mediums.  One reason was I didn't think I could.  And the second reason was I did not think you should.

The 'could not' came from inexperience and lack of exploration at art college.  Each lecture was designed to focus on one skill and one medium to make you the best you could be at that medium and skill.  And obviously taught by a lecturer who was the best in his field.  But it also stifled our knowledge and understanding of how you could create the same result but with different tools.

The 'should not' I think came from an idea at the time that if you're not dedicating yourself to one medium, then you were a hack.  This is no offence to the lecturers I had at the time, but I think many of them were at the top of their field in their particular medium.  Perhaps to branch out into other mediums that they are not as familiar with might reveal some of their inexperience.

So that idea that you should not mix mediums probably all stemmed from a fear that was passed on to me by my teachers.

It wasn't until I'd been working professionally as an illustrator that I started to explore different mediums.  I remember initially starting with acrylic because it was the most popular and readily available medium at the time.  Cheap, easy to work with.  It dried quickly which was a bonus for a commercial illustrator with a deadline.  But that same speedy drying time was also inhibiting my ability to get the smooth blending that I wanted.

I should point out this was around the year 2000.  The internet was not what it is today.  So the ability to google a solution was not at my fingertips.  And no art supplier I visited even offered the solution of an acrylic painting medium that might solve my problems.

I think what ended up happening was, I saw the work of Alex Ross.  And I loved it.  Not just because it was comic book art but because it was fully painted comic book art.  And they looked beautiful.  I somehow found out that Alex Ross worked in gouache and I set out to discover what this strange medium was.  And I have to say, I loved it.  Gouache was like a weird love child of acrylic and watercolour that somehow looks a little like oil paint when it comes out of the tube.

I worked in gouache for years.  It dried quickly, it blended easily, it was opaque and I could reactivate it after it dried.  One small problem.  It was very temperamental unless it was on the right painting surface.

Now this lead to another problem.  I mostly worked on Crescent illustration board.  Illustration boards were becoming less readily available and more expensive in my home town.  And gouache wouldn't just work on any old piece of paper.  I found that I needed to work on watercolour paper to give me the desired effect I needed.  However watercolour paper was very, very expensive.  Especially when I was working on anything above 300gsm Hot Press.

That lead me onto working with Copic Markers.  Markers allowed me to work on smaller pieces with more control and I could use cheaper paper.  But Copics were a little pricey so I had to compensate my lack of colours by using coloured pencils to blend.  And thats when it kind of clicked for me, I didn't have to stick to just one medium.  In fact the more mediums I used the better.  Each medium in a piece had a specific role to create the desired effect.  And the joy of trying something new and pushing myself out of that comfort zone was really enjoyable.

So now I don't limit myself to one medium for a piece.  Sometimes I'll use pencil over markers.  Paint over coloured pencil.  A bit of acrylic here, a bit of ink there.

It's this joy of different mediums that I want to explore more in 2023.  I also want to share that journey with as many people as possible.  People who are interested in the type of art that isn't limited by the imagination or the mediums available.

So my plan is to create an online community where I share these experiences and others can share theirs with me too.

I hope you'll join us.  Click the link here and receive free tutorials  and join the community

Talk soon

Dion Hamill

course.dionhamill.com