Mixed Media for Autumn

Today I’ll be sharing a little mixed media project I’m working on. I haven’t finished it yet, but I thought I’d share where I am in the process. Let’s get started!

Pictured above is the image I’m working off of. I don’t really think my project will look very near to it, but it’s nice to having something to use for inspiration. And I should probably comment that I don’t think of myself as an expert with watercolors or pencils. This is just the way I do it. I love working on my skills, though! And of course, I chose the reference photo that I did because of how much I’m looking forward to Autumn! 😉

I started with a blank sheet of watercolor paper. The next step was to sketch in some of the details of the photo. I did change some of the positioning of things compared to the reference photos, however. This part is really just to get an idea of placement, and I did attempt to sketch in some leaves. I always have trouble with drawing trees. They usually look like little kid’s drawings. 😉

I was going to use just watercolor for this drawing, but then I decided to use both watercolor and colored pencils. I’m a little more confident with the pencils. Plus, I’m hoping to get more detail than would be possible if I was just using watercolor.

I started filling in a bit of the biggest patches of a single color. I tried to only do a light coating, however, so that I’ll be able to make changes later. For all of the red, yellow, and orange patches, I’m hoping to use watercolors. Hopefully that’ll give it a nice glowing quality. It might not look like much right now, but it’s all a part of the process. If you’re interested seeing more of my artwork, I’ll leave a a link here, and here.

Well, What do you think? Do you like mixed media projects? ~ Emily