Book Club: Mixed-Media Master Class

Yesterday we had a super fun chat about Sherrill Kahn's 2013 book, "Mixed-Media Master Class."

If you didn't catch the livestream, you can watch the replay below:

I spent the better part of last week making technique samples on fabric and paper, following the instructions in the book.  You can see a few of them (and if you watched the video, you know that there are sooooo many more):

Finally, a few things that I noted in our Book Club chat that I think are key takeaways:

• This is the kind of book I love.  No real projects to do, instead it's a compendium of art techniques.  Yay!
• This is an older book and so most of the techniques are things you've likely seen and/or tried.  That said, there were some new-to-me techniques/ideas and I'm glad I took the time to explore them!
• This is definitely a light overview of techniques.  While some techniques are basic and straightforward and that treatment is fine, there are techniques that fill entire books but get the gloss over in this book.  For instance, there's one mention of gelatin printing, a few ideas around screen printing, one or two techniques involving stamping, and so on.  So this book is a great sampler, but you'll need another source if you're interested in getting deeper into the techniques.
• My biggest criticism of the book is that the instructions are not helpful in the long term.  The author doesn't offer supply substitutions or explain why she's recommending particular products.  This is a common way of teaching, but it's one of my pet peeves.  Anybody can teach you how to copy them. The magic is in teaching someone how to think for themselves.

Overall, I think the book holds up to the test of time. Certainly worth exploring.  The author's work is beautiful!  (Though I must say I sometimes had a hard time figuring out how she got to her final results based on what was shown in the book.)

Our next Book Club will be in June.  We will be discussing Irene Roderick's brand new book, Improv Quilting.

I hope to see you there!  Thanks for stopping by!