Mixed Media Portraits 3-day Workshop with Kate Thompson

In this workshop you will be creating a Mixed Media Acrylic Collage Portrait using a photo transfer face image as a base. The substrate will be a vintage fabric piece (vintage tablecloth, napkin, table runner, etc.)

This photo transfer will act as an underpainting which will allow us to focus more on painting techniques. Color mixing, values and lighting will be the art principles we will concentrate on.

To make the collage, we will create our own collage papers using image transfers, mark making exercises, joint compound application, stitching, stenciling and more. We will take these elements along with the portrait to create our final mixed media project.

Teacher will bring: Vintage fabric to purchase. Vintage ephemera to purchase, Powdered charcoal, Walnut ink, Stencils, Joint compound.

Supplies:

Acrylic paints (titanium white, alizarin crimson, Paynes gray, yellow ochre). I use Open acrylics by Golden Artist Colors, but any brand will do, except for craft paints

• 1/4-inch Angular brush as in: https://www.dickblick.com/items/06381-4014/

• Filbert brushes size 4 & 6, as in: https://www.rosemaryandco.com/acrylic-brushes/ivory-acrylic/ivory-filberts

• Tiny pointed brush for details

• Matte Medium

• Gesso

• Mechanical Pencil .03 lead as in: Pentel Graph Gear 500 Pencil | BLICK Art Materials

• Stabilo Pencil

• Charcoal Pencil

• A few watercolors (your choice of colors)

• Embroidery floss & needles (your choice of colors)

• Vintage Fabric (check thrift stores, Etsy & eBay) as in: tablecloth, runners, napkins, lace)

• Vintage paper ephemera (old envelopes, letters, ledger pages)

About Kate: She received a degree in Fiber Arts and worked as a textile print designer in the apparel business in Los Angeles for 20 years, but her real education started in 2009. She started painting and made it practice painting every day. As she honed her craft and progressed to the next level which lead her to question “why” she paints. For Kate it is a spiritual journey that she works on and it is something she has to do to keep her mind and body happy! Kate says “I work with watercolors and gesso acrylics, oils, pastels, with ink or with all of them. I am an experimenter. I create my own substrates using vintage lines or ledger paper. I paint on more traditional substrates like watercolor or canvas. I would describe my work as expressive figurative and mixed media portraiture.” Kate teaches all over the United States as well as Europe and most recently Morocco. She identifies with the flawed, cracked and fractured human yearning for peace and fulfillment. “The older I get the stronger the pull to explore and express this theme in my work. My passion is focused on the creative process. I am as passionate about teaching as I am about creating art.

Host or Publisher Artists Council