Mysterious Mouse

Eeek a mouse! Still following Juliette Crane‘s Whimsical Animals online classes but decided to repeat the Art Journaling unit as I quite enjoy it and not quite ready to embark on the next level. This time, I went for an animal I don’t normally paint: How about a mouse? Well, initially it was going to be a bear but I drew the ears so big and round that it resembled a mouse rather than a bear haha!

The Start

I began with gluing an assortment of collage paper on my Strathmore Visual Journal for Mixed Media. Here, I chose a section of a pretty paper napkin and tore out some bits from a magazine featuring interesting colors and textures. Then some blocks of purple and yellow on the edges. with a bit of fluorescent pink The middle was deliberately left blank to add the face. At this point I sketched the mouse (initally bear as mentioned earlier). A bit of stenciling too before coloring the background in teal and creating some negative space with the flower, dress and the little teddy bear. Yup wanted to add the teddy beara too to make up for my change of mind! Decided that my mouse is going to be a white one with green eyes…

Finishing Off

And now the rest of the session just flowed through smoothly. Once I had a better idea of how the whole painting would be, it was all a breeze. It was just finding some interesting collage papers to go with the painting including bits of origami paper and wrapping paper saved from my shopping trips in Japan. Another interesting mark-making method I had picked up from artists is scratching the surface of the paint before it is dried so some of the layer below shows through, as seen in the mouse’s ears and the background. And a bit of bling with a gold metallic pen and glitter glue, and I was good to go!

Mediums Used

A combination of professional-grade (Golden, Sennelier and Talens) and craft-purpose brands (Dylusions and Dina Wakely) were used for this painting. I have to say I do like some of the stuff used for crafts as the colors are so vivid and brilliant, not always found with the professional range. Collages were glued on with acrylic binder, whilst gloss medium was a better substitute for diluting the paints than water is. Glitter mediums include Stickles, Izink and Art by Marlene, once again primarily used for crafts, but I love incorporating them into my whimsical paintings. And I ought to use my stencils more often too!

What fun it was working on this painting! Art journallling is quite a relaxing way to experiment and play around with various mediums and methods to stay creative and inspired, especially between major projects. It was also a wonderful change to work on something different this time; a mouse is another animal I ought to cross from the list of “have drawn”, but I would love to draw one again. Those big round ears are so adorable! And that teddy bear, she has a new friend now, isn’t that sweet?