Capturing light with mixed media
So much for the going back to regular posting… I think I need to give myself more reasonable objectives and start with one post a month! Anyhooow… Today, I want to discuss a bit mixed media and light. This post will probably not be as structured as others, as I will basically walk you through an experiment of capturing light with a mixed media setup.
First, what do I mean with “capturing light” and why “mixed media”
So, this is the reference picture I used to create my pieces. I have taken it in Bergen, at golden hour.
You can see the beautiful golden glow and the long shadows of the trees. I really wanted to capture the atmosphere of the scene, but my previous attempts at doing this with only watercolors ended up quite muddy and overworked. I could also go down the gouache way, but for some reason felt like it restrained me in how I wanted to capture the light. At the time (I did all of these studies between end of June 2026 and beginning of July 2026), I was super inspired by the Instagram posts of the artist Lena Moz, who captures beautiful landscapes in mixed media, usually with a mix of watercolors, colored pencils and Neocolor II (Caran d’Ache watersoluble wax pastels).
How did it started?
I actually started by a value studies, as I wanted to work more on my values and to work again with my acrylic markers. I have 4 big chunky Liquitex acrylic markers: a white, a black and 2 greys (that are unfortunately closer in values than I would prefer). I did two greyscales studies, and on the second one, I went over with colors to “glaze” (in an abusive use of the word, as not all my colors were transparent). It was a really fun experiment and helped me to decide on the most important elements of the scene and how they differed in values.
And now… the experiment
And from there, I just had a play! I started with a small format, doing a super loose watercolor underpainting. I didn’t pay so much attention to the colors, focusing more on the values. Then I slowly built up the layers. I quickly realized that my favorite way of creating the effects I wanted to go for was to use the Neocolor II. I love how opaque they are, that you can soften them with water, and I really enjoy the color selection that I have. I have a lot of really light warm colors, and some beautiful light blues. It allowed me to really play with the light and also bring back some sky in the foliage. I played with both building up the Necolor IIs layers and getting a very wmooth waxy finish, and leaving some rougher marks to add texture. I also added a few details with watercolors. I tried using some colored pencils and I could to some extend, but the waxy finish of the Neocolor IIs does not allow much layering on top. The acrylic markers did a little bit better, but I had to clean them a lot. They were lovely to create some of the foreground texture though.
Overall I’m super super happy with how these turned out. I’m really impressed with the look I could produce and it was a lot of fun (as you can see, I did 3!). It is quite a different process compared to when I do mixed media in plein-air, as I took much longer to layer and build the textures. It was super meditative and I love exploring new ways of conveying atmospheres with the material I have.
