Mixed Media Art Guide: 4 Types of Mixed Media

Mixed media is a type of artwork that mixes different media or materials into one piece. For example, a piece of art that combines an acrylic painting with fabric and paper is mixed media art. You can use mixed media techniques for various crafting and art projects, such as scrapbooking, sketchbooks, découpage, or decorating greeting cards and mixed media art journals.

Mixed media art features different materials and artistic mediums in one singular piece, while multimedia art combines visual elements with interactive or non-visual elements such as sound, lights, or dance.

Mixed media art spans multiple art movements.

• Cubist artists: In the early twentieth century, Cubist artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso made mixed media collages
• Dadaism: Dada artists often incorporated found objects or images from mass media into their art through collage and readymades. The artist Marcel Duchamp famously created Dadaist readymade sculptures by manipulating found, prefabricated objects in a simple way, then presenting them in a gallery as art.
• Art installations: In the 1970s, artists used various artistic techniques and media to create larger-scale art installations, including sculptures made of magazine clippings and found objects.

From found art in museums to scrapbooking, there are various types of mixed media art:

1. 1. Collage: A collage is a form of visual arts in which visual elements are combined to create a new image that conveys a message or idea. Collage comes from the French word “collér,” which means “to glue,” often the primary means of combining images in collage art. Collagers can draw these images from newspaper clippings or print advertisements, or cull them from different materials, like photographs, fabric, wood, and even ephemera. Collagers can apply the images to the surface of another work of art, such as a canvas, to create a new single image.
2. 2. Découpage: Découpage is a craft that involves gluing fabric or paper cutouts onto objects, then sealing the entire object to make it look painted. Découpage is a DIY way to decorate home items and upcycle old objects with new embellishments. You can découpage many surfaces, including wood, metal, glass, terra cotta, and even plastic. Furniture, vases, lampshades, picture frames, and glassware are popular household items to découpage.
3. 3. Assemblage: A 3D mixed media collage is called an assemblage, with various materials protruding in different directions.
4. 4. Found art: Found object art is when artists or crafters repurpose an ordinary or non-artistic object into an art piece.
5. 5. Book alteration: Book alteration is another form of mixed media in which an artist tears apart a book or physically alters it to create a collage or painting.
6. 6. Wet and dry media: This is when wet media (such as acrylic paint, watercolor, ink, or other liquid media) combine with dry media (oil pastels, graphite, crayon). An example is layering a pencil drawing on top of a painting.

Mixed media is part of various art movements and periods. Some of the most famous mixed media artworks include:

1. 1. Still Life with Chair Caning by Pablo Picasso (1912): This notable mixed media artwork is an assemblage of newspaper clippings, fabric, oil paint, and rope.
2. 2. Bicycle Wheel by Marcel Duchamp (1913): Bicycle Wheel was Duchamp’s first readymade, and it was a bicycle fork with an attached front wheel mounted on a wooden stool. Duchamp displayed Bicycle Wheel in his studio and would spin it periodically, possibly making it the first mixed media art piece with an interactive element.
3. 3. The Fall of Icarus (La Chute d’Icare) by Henry Matisse (1943): This work depicts the Greek myth of Icarus with blue paper cut-outs and gouache paint.
4. 4. Mama, Mummy and Mamma (Predecessors #2) by Njideka Akunyili Crosby (2014): This mixed media painting features a woman sitting at a table surrounded by kitchen objects and family photographs and religious art. It features charcoal and colored pencil, acrylic paint, and transfers.

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