Mixed Media Lady with Sarah Donawerth – Flowers in Her Hair – Mixed Media Canvas

Creating mixed media ladies, faces, profiles and silhouettes is so trend right now and there are many ways to create them.  Sarah Donawerth shows us how to make Mixed Media Lady with flowers that you are going to love.  She using paper, paint and a few tricks to make this amazing lady.  Read to the end to check out the YouTube Video.

Florals and Faces are my new obsessions. I have half an art journal filled with faces, florals, and every combination of the two. For this canvas, I was finally feeling warmed up from my previous Flower Child canvas, and ready to tackle another mixed-media canvas.

For this canvas, I decided to let the stress of perfectionism melt away and just go with my gut. The end result is very different from my original plan, but it has much more layers and interesting details than I thought it would to make it interesting. It is bursting with my favorite things — book text, pink, florals, faces, and acrylic painting. Here’s my Mixed Media Origins Canvas.

Canvas Corp Stretched Canvases do not have gesso on them so they are great to use as they are or you can add gesso where you wish.

Products used:
Canvas Corp – Stretched Canvas
Tattered Angels Mixed Media Origins – Blooms
Assorted acrylic craft paints – light pink, hot pink, brown, green, and white
Stabilo All Marking Pencil, China Marker – black, Sakura Fude Marker, Gel medium 

Sketch the basic oval of a face and shoulders onto the canvas.
Use gel medium to adhere book text pieces to the oval and shoulders.
For the edge pieces, lay the book pages over the sketched shape, draw in the shape, then trim and adhere to the canvas.
Seal over the top of the book pages with gel medium.

Paint background with streaks of light pink and warm beige. Blend a little, but leave plenty of paint strokes.

Paint the clothing with streaks of slightly different shades of hot pink and dry brush streaks of hot pink to the rest of the canvas.

Sketch in the basic features of the face.
If you need help finding the proportions, Toni Burt has an excellent tutorial.
Add the outline for wavy hair.

Paint in the entire hair outline with umber paint, adding a few streaks of contrasting shades of brown.
Paint the whites of the eyes (sorry, this step always makes the face look slightly creepy, but we’ll be adding all the other features like the pupils and iris soon, I promise!).
Water down the hot pink paint and add a transparent layer of hot pink to the lips.

Cut out the rose shape and stems out of the Mixed Media Origins page. Paint with watered down hot pink and green paints.
Wipe away any excess paint with a paper towel or baby wipe to ensure that the design and details of the rose are still visible.
Paint a few scraps from the page with pink paint and set aside for later.

Combine the green paint and umber to create her eye color. Paint in the irises of the eyes.
Water down pink paint and add a little to the eyelids and cheeks.
Blend with plenty of water to ensure that the color is transparent.
Add in details of the eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth with an India ink marker or China marker.

Add streaks of watered down pink to the hair and blend with additional water.
Adhere flowers and scraps to the canvas with gel medium.
Draw in the pupil with an India ink marker, then add a drop of white paint to the corner of the pupil to show a little light.
Add some sketchy lines to the drawing with a combination of China Marker, Stabilo All Marking Pencil, and an India ink marker.

Check out this great video on the entire process:

Will you try painting with added Mixed Media Origins elements?

Happy creating!!!

Sarah Donawerth
blog and Instagram

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