hi everyone its Keren here and I'm really excited for this new series of
videos that I'm doing coming up in the next few weeks where I'll be doing
favorite 10 things or different hacks 10 hacks 10 everything I just decided to
take 10 and do lists of things that I thought were important to share with you
on my youtube channel or on my blog and just ideas that you make your life
easier in terms of if you're doing art or mixed-media or crafting or anything
like that and today the one I want to share is this following it's 10 top
mistakes people believe about mixed media art so the 10 top mistakes and
it's not what you think it's not mistakes that you make in mixed media
but it's the perception that people have about mixed media and I just want to
talk about them and really clear things up for everybody who is a beginner or
non beginner who maybe was too afraid to experiment
beyond what they're doing right now so number one
trying to be perfect or wanting your project to be perfect and I do have a
guide right here that because I wrote all of ten of them out so if I'm looking
down it's because I'm just reading out the topic so I don't forget because my
memory sometimes fails me so trying to be perfect I tell my students all the
time mixed-media is not about perfection you do not have to be perfect your
project doesn't have to be perfect it has to be how you tried on how much you
experiment on and you can always fix anything you don't think you like you
can take off mediums you can add mediums you can hide things with just so you can
basically just want to the most important thing I want to convey to
people is that you should not be afraid of making mistakes because mistakes are
not what you think r-value veto number two
not being afraid to make mistakes so yeah most people want to be perfect in
their things so they're so afraid to making those mistakes but there is
really no mistakes in mixed media because mixed media it's all about new
opportunities so if you make a mistakes and trust me I've made lots of mistakes
you what you do is you go ahead and you take that and you make it into something
even more amazing every mistake is an opportunity for something grander for
something amazing for something that will just like come out even better
sometimes every time I've made a mistake or I've spilled something on myself
sometimes I spilled a whole tub of things on me like not on me on my
project and I've been able to fix it and make it better or many times I've tried
to do something in the pro in the experiment and didn't come out the way I
thought I was going to come out and yes that's a mistake but you know what the
final project came out even better than I thought so that's something that it's
really important don't be afraid to be perfect you don't need to be perfect and
number two you don't need to worry about making mistakes mistakes are just
another way of an opportunity to create something greater here now to number
three
not trying or experimenting with your mediums you have all these mediums that
you buy because you see people like me or other great artists going to the
going to youtube or on their blogs and you see them experimenting and you
really want to try that and you buy all the products and they just sit on your
desk on your shelf on your cart and you just don't know what to do with them
because you're too afraid to try don't be afraid doesn't matter you don't have
to be perfect right goes to number one and you don't have to worry about making
mistakes because it's just fun to experiment you get yourself in our
journal if you don't want to do anything crazy on a canvas or anything like that
you take in our journal and you start experimenting with the products and see
what formulas work for you and what you like and what type of texture like and
the more you experiment all you're doing is you're just ruining if you do let's
say make a mistake and all you are is ring one little page of your HR Journal
there's nothing to worry about or no like it's just a page you move on you
flip the page over and you start experimenting again it's really
important to try and experiment and just have fun and not worry so much about
what mistakes you might make why do you know like it's just a fact of being
perfect now it goes to number four
compare yourself to others and not feeling good enough about what you're
doing well we know this from society we tend to return that we are society who
tends to compare ourselves to others and I understand that that's something that
it's really hard not to do because we want to be good we want to be accepted
by others we want to be I know told that our work is amazing and yes I understand
I'm at fault with that too but it's really important not to compare
yourself to what others are doing you should really focus on what you're doing
and experimenting with your own tools and I'm not saying not learning from
others definitely you should look at other videos or or projects and learn
from people but then you just go and you have your own kind of style which gear
brings me to number five
which is trying to expect once you experiment you're going to kind of want
to do create your own style and not copy somebody else it's really important to
understand this point copying somebody else in giving them credit when you're
learning and you're starting that's amazing it's really important to give
credit to those artists that are teaching you but if you're going to copy
and then just pretend that it's yours that's a no-no however it's really
important to develop your own style and not compare to what others do and yes
you're still that you know there's not that many Styles out there so your style
will be similar to another but always you should have your own little twist
your own little thing that is yours go on to number six
thinking that something is more complicated when it's easy just like it
was in kindergarten I really tell this to all my students all the time
mixed-media is like cutting and pasting and gluing in kindergarten it's just
putting one layer over another cutting pudding it really helps when people
understand that and when they finally come to the classes because there
sometimes are too afraid to even come to the class to try or or just experiment
right but when they come and they see how easy it is they are like wow this is
so easy this is like kindergarten so really not thinking that something is as
complicated as it is it's really important to just you know being that oh
this is not complicated I can do it then you just experiment at home with what
you learned going to number seven
being afraid to waste product I know this is a big one we're on a tight
budget we have there's so many products out there we buy them and then we're
like oh we are so afraid of wasting well guess what you'll be surprised how
little you use when you're doing mixed-media really to cover like a page
or let's say an art journal page or even a layout page with gesso clear Jess or
white gesso you're really only using like a dollop but like almost like the
size maybe a little bit maybe two quarters worth you don't need that much
even with paste when you're going through stencils you can use it and then
save it you're really not using that much product and it does last a long
time and it's really important to just stop being afraid of so many things not
being a being afraid of wasting product I understand budget is if achill so go
and buy things when they're on sale but experimenting and trying in yeah maybe
sometimes will might use something and you might not come out the way you want
it and you feel like it's a wasted product but it's really not wasted
because you experimented and tried that and the opportunity came and you were
able to see that maybe that formula with those products didn't work and that's an
experiment you're not going to do again and now you know that you don't have to
use it at that way and those products that way and then you'll be able to move
forward and not waste the products from then on so a mistake like that let's say
that's a mistake which really is not because you're experimenting and excuse
me you're learning how to experiment with the product any mistake that you're
making or any product that you're wasting it's really just an opportunity
to learn about that product now let's go to number nine
believing that taking a class or watching a video tutorial is not for you
as it might show that you're not good enough if you're taking that class or if
you're taking out tutorial well I really want to say that all of us start
somewhere I took a class I took a class from Finn when I was finna be R when I
was like a few years ago and I took a classes from many different people Jonna
Downey and different people that I thought could teach me something I still
know they still look at video Tube videos to learn things every place I go
I learn something so it doesn't really matter what level of art or mixed media
or crafting you are there's always something to learn something that
somebody else can teach you and feeling that by watching them or by going to a
class you might not you might be not be as good as them it really is important
to realize that that's not really the case that you're learning from their
experiences so that's really important now let's go to number nine
which is somebody that is something that I already touched upon but it's really
important too that it's not giving credit where credit is due it's really
important a lot of artists gets really offended when somebody goes and that's
something that is so similar to their style and then they don't say that they
were inspired by then the person doesn't say anything that they wish she was
inspired or he was inspired by them and I'm not talking about technique you can
be inspired by the technique and still give credit or you can be do a whole
project similar to what the other person did or the same and still you need to
give credit it's really important it makes people that work so hard to teach
those techniques or teach those those projects make them feel really really
really good and finally number 10
and this is the most important one not believing in yourself and your
creativity it's really important that you believe in yourself that some
mistake that most people do is that they just don't believe they just think that
everybody else is better than them believing in yourself is the most
important thing once you start believing in your stuff and you start developing
your own style and you start like you know learning from others and giving
credit to them which is really important once you are not afraid to waste product
and make mistakes and not try to be perfect which goes back to all the
points that are made before once you start believing in yourself which is the
top thing that you have to do the most important thing once you do that then
all the other ones are going to just fall into place
well you can get rid of me that fast I know I finished my 10 most common
mistakes people make about mixed-media but I have to come back for just one
more
okay so I'm going to cheat a little bit and it really wasn't ten mistakes that
you could make about mixed-media it's 11 and I apologize I am having I had to
come back and say this last one which was really really important that I
totally forgot about and that is talking about patience and I am not the best
person to talk about this because I'm very impatient when I have to let things
dry and I'm very impatient when I want things to come out the right way or how
I want them or my idea to come out in patience plays a big part in this you
have to be patient with mixed-media number one patience comes into effect
when you are trying to create something but you don't know how to you know they
know the ropes of mixing you don't know how to combine certain things and you're
learning stuff patience will come you know like the
time will tell how much you're going to learn and depending on how much you
experiment so it's really really important to just have patience and
continue trying and continue exploring and experimenting because eventually
once a few a bunch of time passes you will actually be able to see your
progress and you'll see how amazing having that patience there's also the
patience of waiting until something dries it's really really annoying just
sitting there and waiting and I hate doing it but sometimes I just have to
walk away because even if I'm using my heat tool to dry something it doesn't
dry it completely in some mediums it's better if you don't let them dry and you
let them air dry so sometimes I literally have to walk away do something
else and be patient and then come back to my project when it's dry and then I
get the best results so patience comes in two different ways many many
different ways as well probably regarding mixed media so to summarize my
10 most common mistakes that people make about mixed media +1 because it's
technically 11 my most common wants to summarize
and not in a particular order because I don't have them in order at all trying
to be perfect on wanting your pilot project to be perfect a big no-no you
don't want to be perfect you have to just try which leads to number two not
trying on experimenting or number three being afraid to make mistakes
number four comparing yourself to others or not feeling good enough about
yourself number five pretending there to be
somebody else and doing projects like them number six thinking that something
is complicated when it's just really easy number seven being afraid to waste
product number eight not giving credit where credit is due to another artist
number nine believing that taking a class or
watching a video is a big mistaken it's not for you because it makes you look as
if you're not good enough number ten not believing in yourself and in your
creativity and number eleven how not having enough patience to do everything
and I just think this is like just amazing I love these and I really want
you to try and just tell me what you think and if you can come up with any
other ones that you think are something that I should talk about just leave me a
comment in my video and I will just maybe have a second round about these
most common mistakes that people believe about mixed media thank you so much and
stay tuned for my next video on another ten list that I create by