Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Green, and welcome to another Oak National Academy art lesson.

Today we're studying "Mixed media printing: combining traditional and modern methods." That's from the unit "Foundation workshops: developing skills." This is such an interesting lesson looking at how we combine traditional analog printing techniques with modern digital methods to produce some incredibly creative and exciting outcomes.

So I hope you're looking forward to it just as much as I am.

By the end of today's lesson, you're going to be able to create a mixed media print that combines both traditional printmaking techniques with digital overlays.

Can't wait to get started.

I hear you're just as excited as I am, so let's get going.

Now, before we can get into the nuts and bolts of our printing today, we need to understand a few really, really important keywords.

So we're gonna be talking about monoprints, so monoprints are unique prints made by drawing or inking directly onto a surface and pressing onto paper.

Collagraphs are prints created using a textured collage plate.

Digital overlays.

This is when you add a computer-generated imagery, text, color, something like that, onto a traditional print.

And finally, mixed media simply means combining more than one artistic medium into a single artwork.

So the outline of our lesson is here on the screen.

Firstly, we're gonna learn about traditional and digital printing.

And then, in the second learning cycle, we're going to explore how to combine mixed media processes.

So let's start with traditional and digital printing and explore that.

So this is our big question really for the lesson.

What happens when we take a centuries-old method like printmaking and combine it with modern digital software and tools? Have a think about that.

Maybe you've got some ideas about that yourself.

If you wanna think about it for a while, you could pause the video.

Otherwise you can just carry on listening.

Essentially, when we do this, we open up creative possibilities that neither of those techniques could achieve alone.

Maybe that's something that you discussed with a partner or were thinking to yourself.

Essentially, we're able to take two different types of printmaking or technique, combine them and therefore create the possibilities that we wouldn't have been able to if we were just using one of those techniques.

So it's incredibly exciting, interesting, comes up with all sorts of creative outcomes that are just absolutely brilliant to.

So in the past, artists relied only on handmade methods.

So for example, carving, inking, pressing prints by hand.

Today, graphic designers and printmakers often combine those sorts of analog handmade methods and digital approaches, approaches that you use computer and digital technology.

What they're not doing is replacing one with the other.

What they end up doing is they are layering both these sorts of techniques to get the strengths of both and create some really interesting creative outcomes.

So, if we want to combine these methods, you need to start with something physical, something like you can see in this image here, very familiar to many of us, certainly familiar to me.

I remember my time doing art at school, doing a lot of linocut print plates like this.

I think mine was of the inside of a pepper, a bell pepper, something like that.

You may have done something similar or something different.

Hopefully you've been able to experiment with a linocut print plate before like this.

But essentially, you're always gonna start with something physical like this when you're combining methods.

It might be a linocut like this, it might be a monoprint, it might be a collagraph, we'll talk about those later.

And basically, once you've created it, you digitize it.

So once you've made your print with that technique, you scan it, you photograph it, and therefore you've got what we call a base layer, okay, to work with in the digital stage.

And that allows us to do all sorts of exciting things with that base layer.

So I mentioned monoprints and collagraphs already and they were two of our keywords, and let's talk about them in a little bit more detail because they're very important when we think about our physical analog base layer when we use this mixed media approach.

So they are traditional printmaking methods.

Each of them creates surfaces with unique qualities.

So, you know, rich textures, bold marks, tactile effects.

So you can see that here with this collagraph.

It's using quite textured materials to build up the plate.

And these qualities make them perfect for experimenting with digitally later on.

So a monoprint is always unique.

You can make them really simply just by inking or drawing onto a surface absolutely anything and pressing paper on top.

So you've got some examples here.

Objects like leaves, lace, fabric, anything that has a sort of rich, varied, interesting texture is really, really useful for sort of very creative outcomes with a monoprint.

Particularly because each impression comes out slightly differently, which gives the monoprints their character.

You can see here, even though those two bottom monoprints are quite similar, they've got quite different outcomes, quite different impressions that have come out of them with, you know, slightly darker and lighter areas, and that gives a lot of character.

You can actually see here an artist making a monoprint using a leaf.

So you can see they start off by rolling ink onto the leaf and then they press it down onto the paper.

And what that means is you get all sorts of details of the material that you're using on your print, so notice how the fine lines and surface textures of the leaf are captured on the paper.

And I think you'd agree it's those sort of like subtle details and real sort of textured quality that makes monoprints so interesting.

Even if you have two very similar leaves or even if you use the same leaf or item twice, you might end up with quite different monoprints because of the amount of ink, which parts of the surface texture picked up the ink, for example, which of them deposit more of it onto the paper.

So you get some really quite interesting prints and they're all different, I guess hence the name monoprint, one print, mono meaning one, and all of these prints come out differently.

There are quite a few methods of making monoprints.

You can use lots of different techniques, so one that you might be familiar with is you can use a subtractive method.

Essentially, you can remove ink from a surface.

So you can ink up a, you know, acetate or glass plastic surface like you can see on this image on the left and then remove ink from it before printing it onto paper.

Or some people like to draw directly onto the printing plate like we see on this approach on the right.

And these different approaches give different sort of qualities of line and texture.

So these are different types of techniques you can use to produce monoprints.

Collagraphs are slightly different.

So collagraph involves building up a plate with textured materials.

So you can see on the left they've used cardboard and they've built up different materials onto this plate in a pattern, and then they've used those different materials together to create the final inked outcome.

And you can use anything really, cardboard, fabric, sandpaper, anything with surface quality, it needs to have like a nicely textured surface.

And once inked, the plate prints those textures onto paper, and each collagraph plate is quite unique and the prints are very richly tactile.

So you can see that example on the right-hand side, the same plate is being used over and over again, it's got this really rich tactile outcome on the fabric that's been printed on there.

So those are sort of analog approaches and traditional approaches.

Another traditional approach is called a relief print.

So this is where we talked about those sort of linocut plate before.

And linocut plates are a really good example of a relief print.

Basically, very traditional.

You carve into a plate, ink it, then press paper onto it.

And you might be familiar with this already.

As I said before, I certainly remember this.

And what I do remember is that every mark and touch shows up in the final print.

So quite often I'd maybe go a little bit too far with my lino-cutting tool, or maybe cut into part of the lino that I didn't want to, or maybe accidentally make some marks that I wasn't meaning to.

And because of the method that you use, it's often quite difficult to get rid of every single part of the lino that you want.

You can see here on this image there are a few missing, or parts of the lino that should be missing but they're not quite gone.

And actually all those imperfections and sort of experimentation can often lead to really creative outcomes.

And often we find as artists the most interesting prints come from mistakes.

So don't worry about imperfections or experimentation, that's the sort of path you want to take for unexpected creative outcomes.

Now, we've talked about some traditional printmaking there, but we need to consider the digital aspect as well if we're gonna consider this mixed media approach.

So a digital overlay is a layer of text or shape or color that is added to the print using software.

Once you've digitized your print, so once you've taken your print that you've made using traditional methods that we've just discussed and you've digitized it, you can add overlays to enhance it.

So it's not about replacing or going over that handmade quality that we got from the analog traditional printmaking.

It's about extending it into new directions.

And what we get is what we call mixed media.

So mixed media simply means combining two or more artistic methods.

So, for example, like this image that we've got on the left-hand side here.

You might scan a monoprint or a collagraph, so here that's that collagraph from before.

And then we've added a digital overlay of text, or color, in the case here of color.

And what that means is we get a mixed media print that draws from both the analog and the digital traditions.

So we've gone through quite a lot there and what I want to do is check that you understand what we've been talking about.

So what does the term mixed media mean in art and design? Is it A, combining only pencils and pens; B, making a single copy of two combined images; C, combining two or more different artistic methods; or D, using only digital tools? Have a think about what mixed media means in art and design, pause the video and check back with us to see if you are correct in a moment.

Of course, you've been listening really well and you know that it was C, mixed media in art and design is combining two or more different artistic methods.

Let's have a think now about how you can experiment with textures.

So when you come to creating your monoprint or your collagraph before the digitizing aspect of what we're doing today, what you should try and do is experiment with textures and marks.

So that might be through using a variety of different textures.

You know, fabrics, leaves, other materials to see the sorts of textures they produce, whether those textures differ with different inks that you use, how they show up differently on maybe different things that you're printing onto, so different types of paper or fabric.

And also, you know, if you use a different method such as, you know, removing ink from a plate or drawing directly onto it, think about the different sorts of marks that you're using and how these end up with a very different effect on the final print.

Because those details are gonna appear in your scanned image, they're gonna become the raw material for digital edit.

So if you get really, really rich, interesting textures now, the more you're going to have to play around with later.

For example, if you draw quite a simple, you know, line-making print onto a plate, very, very simple, not much texture to it, you're not gonna have a great deal of raw material to play around with.

Whereas if you look at the examples on the screen here, you can see there's so much texture going on in these different prints that when we come to the digital aspect you can do so much with it.

So once your print is dry on whatever medium that you've printed onto, paper, fabric, et cetera, we need to digitize it.

So you need to photograph it or scan it.

Now, the key here is to get a really good quality reproduction of what you've printed.

There's no point doing an amazing print like this bee here and then do a really pour quality scan of it where we don't pick up all the rich texture and detail.

I mean, on this one here, if you look at all the lines to the side of the bee, it gives so much texture.

It's those experimentation and accidents that we talked about that give real creativity, I think they give real movement to this image of this bee.

I mean, you can almost just hear it sort of like buzzing out the screen at you, can't you? We wanna capture that, so make sure your image is clear, make sure it's in focus, make sure it's well lit.

What you've could always remember is this is gonna be the foundation for your digital overlay and your mixed media print, so this needs to be as highly detailed, richly textured, and high quality as possible to allow you to do the most with it.

Okay, let's check back on what we've understood again.

So I want you to think about this question.

Which of these best describes a collagraph? Is it A, a print made using a textured collage plate; B, a computer-generated design; C, a stencil used for spray paint; D, a photograph printed onto paper? Pause the video to have a think.

When you think you've got it, press play and we'll see if you were right.

Of course the answer was A, a print made using a textured collage plate.

You might have got mixed up with C, a stencil.

Remember, a stencil is when you remove material to leave a negative image that you then spray or brush paint over, which is similar to a collagraph in the sense that you're gonna have to work with something like cardboard or paper or some other material.

However, in a collagraph, the material is being built up to create the textured plate that you're going to use for printing, whereas a stencil is all about removing material.

A collagraph is about building it up, creating that very beautiful, textured collage plate using collage, hence the name collagraph.

So your first task today is to create one traditional print.

This could be anything, I want your imagination to really run wild.

You've seen some great examples here, haven't you, already? Like that linocut bee, the collagraph with the different sort of circle flower designs.

Basically, you should either use a monoprint, a collagraph, or any other method that you're comfortable with.

Do something that you know you can be creative with, you can do a really good job with.

Don't worry about experimentation and any unexpected results.

Remember that's where creativity lies, you can get great creative outcomes from that.

And what you need to do is, once it's finished, you need to think back to what we said about digitizing your work, making sure it's clear, well lit, et cetera, and scan it into your computer or photograph it and save the file.

So, while you're having a go at that, pause the video, and then we'll come back and have a look at some examples of the sort of things that you might have done.

Okay, so you were probably wondering when I kept showing you that amazing bee linocut print.

Well, here it is Alex's.

So Alex deliberately left some of the carved lines and marks around the image 'cause he thought they would add texture later.

We talked about that, didn't we? Gives it that sense of movement.

He made several prints, chose the clearest one, and I think that's a really good idea to do.

You know, if.

So now that we've got our digital base, we are going to move on to the second part of the lesson, which is combining the mixed media processes.

So a scanned print can be refined and enhanced with digital elements.

So this is where we are combining handmade and digital methods, which allows us to unlock a much broader range of creative possibilities.

The absolute key thing here is that we are not replacing traditional printmaking.

When we use these digital tools, we're enhancing the traditional printmaking, we're not replacing it.

So this mixed media way of combining the handmade and the digital is all about producing a sort of richer, more creative outcome that enhances the traditional approach with new digital techniques.

Experimentation is definitely the name of the game when it comes to using digital processes.

I mean, the brilliant thing about digital tools and being able to experiment with them is you don't have like any of the mess of the analog.

Don't get me wrong, printing, cutting out your lino plates, et cetera, it's so much fun and you can get some really interesting results from different creative processes and even by accident like we discussed.

But it can be messy, you can have lots of different inks, paint, collage plates, et cetera, all over the place.

It could be difficult to undo something or the mistakes, as we might see them, although they're not actually a mistake.

End up with a really creative outcome.

To undo something we really don't want can be quite problematic in the analog.

But in the digital, you can do all sorts of things, can't you? You can try out different type bases, color palettes, shapes, patterns, and see how these interact with textures of our scanned prints.

Mixed media work really thrives on experimentation.

So what I'd like you to do is have a little think about the sorts of overlays you might add to your print.

So either have a think to yourself or discuss with a partner what sort of digital overlay you might add to the print that you've made.

Could it be some text, a color field, a new shape? Think about how this would change the appearance and the meaning of your work, because every decision you make alters the final impression.

So have a think to yourself, talk to someone at home or chat to a partner.

What sort of digital overlay might you add to your print? Pause the video and we'll have a look at some suggestions when you come back.

So we've got a couple of ideas here.

So we've got Laura.

Now, Laura, you can see this combination of a collagraph and some overlays here.

And she's saying that she could use the combination of textures from the collagraph with, you know, with these natural materials like leaves, flowers or feathers.

So what she's done is she's sort of taken several different naturally textured collagraphs and in fact I think a monoprint there as well with the leaf, and she's used them as sort of like digital overlays to put them all together in a way that she wouldn't have been able to do in the analog method to create a project about sort of nature awareness and awareness about the natural world.

And Lucas is talking about maybe taking a monoprint, some sort of striking monoprint visual design, and then introducing text onto it, which is really easily done with digital overlays.

You know, if you think about what you can achieve with selecting different typefaces very quickly, very effectively compared with doing so in an analog method, or even taking, being able to take the same monoprint image and adding different words to it to see which ones suit best, so much easier in a digital sense.

And that means he can turn monoprints into poster designs that communicate information.

I think the key here with both Laura and Lucas is they're discussing how overlays can sort of add depth, both visual depth but also sort of emotional and informational depth and purpose to their designs.

It allows you to do different things with your analog printing that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

So let's just check that you understand how digital overlays enhance traditional prints.

So, do they do this by, A, replacing traditional printmaking completely; B, by correcting mistakes in color and contrast only; C, by removing all textures, colors, and texts, or D, by adding extra layers of text, color, or imagery? So pause the video, have a think about that question, come back when you're ready to view the answer.

Of course the answer was D.

Absolutely not about replacing traditional printmaking.

Digital overlays are all about enhancing traditional prints by adding extra layers of text, color, and imagery.

So there are other sorts of experiments that we can do with this mixed media approach.

You can see a really good example of this on the left.

It's got so much going on here.

You can blend layers, adjust opacities, so how sort of thick the paint or color is, how much light is let through.

You can crop different layers even if they're repeated, and doing all of this to kind of build a unified image.

So you can see here the artist has thought really well about balance, contrast, and composition.

Just have a think for a minute about how they've managed to do that.

If you wanna pause the video, you can, and we'll discuss how in a second.

So some of the things you might have talked about here is how the overlays that this artist have used enhance rather than hide textures.

So you can even see, if you look really at the background, you can see some of the really sort of lightly colored gray textures that are being used.

They haven't used texture in a way that hides other pieces of printing.

The overlays don't really dominate, they really work with the textures that are already there underneath.

And they've thought really carefully about the composition here, about where the monoprint of the sort of fern leaf goes, about where the typeface goes in the top right-hand corner.

They've thought about what complements it well, the positioning of different colors.

So, for example, you can see that sort of blue swatch of color down underneath, beneath the fern, and then that's repeated in the other leaf pattern at the top.

Most of the textures here are sort of very natural and from nature, but they're also combined with the odd bit of sort of human focus with that block of blue and the text at the top.

But again, natural versus human, neither one sort of dominates, just a really fascinating piece of work.

So think about some of those examples there that you could bring into your own work.

What you need to think about as well is also using adjustment layers.

Okay, so we can use these to change contrast, brightness, and color saturation, and we can tweak all of those things.

And if you make really small refinements and sort of fine-tuning to those different adjustments layers, you can completely transform the mood of the piece.

If you adjust the brightness, you can really bring a sort of dark, foreboding mood to a piece and show up, you know, with additional contrast, high levels of contrast, you can maybe show up so much more of a rich texture that you do if it has that more sort of washed out effect.

So what I'd recommend is that because this is all digital and you can make multiple variations and versions of what you're doing very, very easily, I would experiment with multiple versions, use different adjustments to the contrast, the brightness, the color saturation so you can explore all different effects and decide which are gonna be best.

Or if you just want to have, you know, one go at it and then save your file ready for printing digitally, that's fine as well.

But experimentation here is really the name of the game 'cause you can get some really different sort of creative outcomes.

You can see that on these images here.

Even though they're using the same three basic prints, a variety of techniques there, the colors and saturation have been changed in very different ways to get some really different yet similarly creative outputs.

I've got some recommendations for you to go away and have a look at in terms of artists that experiment with mixed media processes.

They involve traditional and digital techniques for some inspiration for you.

So the first is Mehwish Iqbal.

Born in Pakistan.

And Mehwish Iqbal is a Sydney-based multidisciplinary artist whose works span printmaking, painting, textiles, ceramics, sculpture, and installation.

Her practice investigates themes such as womanhood, empowerment, resilience and freedom, often reflecting on the dynamics of power, the commodification of human agency and the transformation of hybrid identities.

Iqbal's work also engages with the experiences of refugees and migrant communities, exploring how geopolitical conditions shape displacement and the ways these diasporas are received and negotiated to the new cultural context.

We also have Marc Quinn, a London, a British-based contemporary artist.

A key figure in the young British artist movement.

Gained attention in 1991 with "Self," a self-portrait made from 10 pints of his own frozen blood.

Quinn's work spans sculpture, painting, and installation, exploring themes like the human body, identity and the environment.

His art reflects the human experience, tackling topics such as the relationship between humans and nature, the pursuit of beauty and identity, and the representation of social history and contemporary culture.

We also have Sumi Perera, who's a British interdisciplinary artist and scientist who was born in Sri Lanka.

She combines printmaking with laser engraving, stitching and sandblasting to create installations and artist books.

Using both traditional and digital techniques, including CNC methods and special inks that react to touch, her work explores how the body interacts with built environments.

Her practice reflects her background in both art and science, focusing on physical and mental boundaries in space.

We also have a variety of artists that are useful to look at because of the way that they create in unconventional ways.

So, Robert Rauschenberg was an American painter known for his pivotal role in postwar contemporary art and the development of Neo-Dada and Pop Art.

He challenged traditional boundaries between painting and sculpture through his combines, works that integrated found objects, everyday materials, and non-traditional media.

Known for his screen-printing experiments, he created fluid painterly marks that expanded printmaking's expressive potential.

Rauschenberg's innovative approach blurred the line between art and life, engaging with social, political, and cultural themes.

And also Zarina Hashmi, an Indian-born artist whose minimalist works explored the themes of home, memory, and displacement.

After being uprooted by the partition of India, she lived in several countries until settling in the United States in the 1970s where she became part of the feminist and printmaking communities.

Working with woodcut, intaglio, and homemade paper, she used abstract forms, Urdu script and architectural motif to reflect on migration, exile, and the search for belonging.

Though visually restrained, her work speaks powerfully to the fragility of identity and the enduring search for home.

And finally, we have Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, a Scottish sculptor, printmaker, and paint maker widely regarded as a pioneer of Pop Art.

Born in Leith, Edinburgh, to Italian immigrant parents, his multidisciplinary practice combined collage, sculpture, and screen printing, often incorporating elements of popular culture, technology, and science fiction.

Known for his bold, colorful works, he explored the intersections of mass media, consumerism and modern life.

Okay, so let's take a little check on what we understand about the combination of digital methods and traditional printing with combining mixed media processes.

So do you think this is true or false? Digital methods make traditional printing unnecessary.

What do you think? Pause the video and come back when you think you've got the answer.

Of course the answer is false.

Maybe have a little think now about why.

I've talked about it a lot so far during this lesson.

The answer's false because traditional and digital methods work together, each enhancing the other.

Digital processes expand the creative impact of handmade prints, don't replace them.

If you look up some of the artists that we just discussed, you'll see how they use digital methods alongside traditional ones, enhancing both those approaches rather than one replacing the other.

Okay, so we're gonna move on to our second and final task of the lesson, and it's gonna be using the traditional print we digitized earlier.

What I want you to do is I want you to take your scanned print and I want you to add at least one digital overlay.

So I want you to think carefully about how the overlay changes the piece.

I want you to evaluate it and I want you to think, does it add emphasis? Does it contrast with what's already there? Does it add meaning? Think about what you're gonna add.

You can add shape, color, texture, typeface.

You can play around with the saturation, the brightness, the color.

Do experiment.

Think about the sorts of different outcomes you can come up with.

Remember, if you don't like it, you can always undo it and make a change.

You might be surprised with some of the experimentation you do, it comes out with some of the most creative outcomes.

But what I want you to make sure you're doing is think about exactly how that digital overlay is improving and enhancing your original printmaking artwork.

So pause the video, have a go at that, and then we'll come back and see some examples of what you might have produced.

Okay, so here's one example.

Right, we've got the bee linocut, haven't we, that Alex showed us earlier with those beautiful movement lines.

I have to say I absolutely love the gold selection of color here, it's absolutely beautiful.

It makes me think of that connotation with royalty and when people talk about royal jelly, which is a substance that you find in beehives, people put it in beauty products, don't they? And I think that really, really comes out in this print, that sort of like royalty and important position of a bee in nature.

And I think, you know, if we think about what Alex has done here and what Alex would say about it, Alex is saying that he's scanned his bee linocut and then he's used this sort of choreograph textures, he digitally combined it with overlays, blending and color changes, and then added text to deepen the design.

I think that interplay, doesn't it, of the green plants prints with the bee, and in fact using that sort of like overlay background, hexagonal beehive layer works really, really effectively, doesn't it? To get a nicely sort of combined element to the design.

It brings everything together, it's very coherent, but it also gives depth.

There's so much depth to this piece, it's got so many layers.

If you look from the sort of background forward, there are, you know, three, four, five different layers here that he's been able to produce from an amazing analog initial print using digital techniques to really bring that all together.

And the text just adds a sort of final, really sort of interest and informational and sort of awareness-promoting angle to it.

Whatever you've managed to come up with I'm sure is absolutely fantastic.

Really imaginative, it's got loads of different layers.

Remember, this is just one example.

You might not have had any text.

You might not have had one single sort of dominant print that's been used there.

You might have had a lot more overlays, pure overlays, you might have been quite restrained with your digital aspect of your design.

The important thing here is that you've experimented with mixing those medias and that you've enhanced your traditional printmaking in some way using digital tools.

So well done, I'm sure what you produced is absolutely incredible.

So to summarize, mixed media printing integrates traditional methods, like monoprint or collagraph, with modern digital techniques.

By adding digital overlays and refinements, artists expand the creative potential of their prints.

These approaches encourage experimentation, problem-solving, and new ways of working.

I've absolutely loved exploring mixed media printing, the combination of traditional and modern methods with you today.

I hope you've really enjoyed the lesson.

I hope you've come up with some outcomes that you're absolutely thrilled with.

I'm sure you have.

And I look forward to welcoming you to another art lesson here at Oak National Academy in the near future, bye-bye.