Hello friends welcome back to my channel and if you are new to my channel then I am Erin and it is lovely to have you here This is a bit of an art journaling basics video I had a subscriber Nat hi Nat asked me if I would do a video about Discussing some of the differences between the mediums and the gels that we use in mixed media So I'm gonna talk about mat medium jessso Heavy Joe glass and molding paste because I think those are the main things that that I would use in my mixed media art journal So let's start with jessso Now jessso is essentially a primer you Put it onto your surface be that wood or canvas or paper and you do you lay it on the surface before you add Any other paint and what it does is it seals the surface So the surfaces are longer porous otherwise the paint will just sink away and you'll use so much paint So it seals the surface and also it creates a nice tooth for the paint to grip to but also it the paint flows nicely Across the top of the surface as well. So it's really really lovely jessso comes in Various different colors you got it in white. I have it in black You can get it in other colors and you could also mix acrylic paint in with it too And then on top of that you can use acrylics. I use pencil color pencil inks Water soluble wax crayons anything like that and they all react in a unique way with the primer So that's part of the game part of the fun is trying out all your supplies all your supplies on top of the primer and seeing what you like What works for you and what doesn't? Now this jessso particular the one I use the most dries white So it's really nice you can use that white as you know a feature of your artwork for example How I would use it most Is something like this? So on this page I have stuck napkins or Soviets and then what I do is I take my jessso and just sweep it across the page and What happens is it just kind of allows the serviet and the paper to blend together You don't know the edges are it softens the edges and creates layers So after I do this I will put some more paint and then maybe some more jessso and then another kind of paint or more Collage material and then sweep some more jessso and it creates this Unity in the piece or even though you have all different layers of paint and all different layers of collage material The jessso allows the layers to feel quite unified I Have some process videos of me doing this in my art journal So I'll link to those in the information box below One other very important aspect of jessso is that it really works to strengthen your page A lot of the times when we're using mixed media in an art journal We really work that paper and depending on the quality of your paper the amount of supplies, paints, Mediums that we all lead to it Sometimes you can just see your page to sit to grate under your brush It'll start to peel and tear and the paper just can't take all the stuff we're putting on it So by putting a lovely thick layer of jessso on first and preparing that page You really give an extra strength and extra stiffness to take all the things that we're gonna do to it Now the next most common thing that I would use is matte medium. I love matte medium. I think it is amazing stuff It is essentially an adhesive Well, you can mix it with your acrylic paint as well to get more flow out of your paint But I don't really use it that way. I use it as an adhesive for collage mainly anything that I'm gonna stick in my journal I will stick it in with matte medium So collage materials especially When you stick them in with matte medium you put some matte medium you stick your collage paper And then more matte medium over the top and what that does is it kind of blends your collage material to your page So it forms one beautiful matte surface. You don't know you can't feel any ridges or bumps between your paper And your collage material. They're all just beautiful one flat surface which you can then use paint color pencil Whatever you like Let me show you some examples of how I use that so Here Here we go So for these pages I have cut out some Sewing patterns. So this is sewing pattern paper under here First I'm written on the page and then stuck sewing pattern paper over the top and Then I've used matte medium or so I've used matte medium on the bottom and then matte medium over the top of the paper And so it's beautifully flat Beautiful flat and then I've put inks I think over the top of that Again, I'll show you another example This one here's a good one You can see that so old book pages and I've stuck them down with matte medium It's beautifully flat you can feel no ridges and bumps between the the book page and the collage Material it is just beautifully flat and matte and on top of that I've worked with color pencils ink water color inks all sorts of things and It's fabulous. It's fabulous. That medium. I love it. It drives it drives clear The next thing that I use is molding paste so molding paste is It's a thick gel that creates a beautiful 3D effect One of the nicest ways to use it is with a stencil So you get a tool like a palette knife or in my case I use a credit card an old credit card and you scoop the paste out and then Put it over the top of your stencil and that way you get the most beautiful texture in your work like this So this is created with molding molding paste on a stencil. It's beautiful It's got a beautiful 3D effect to it and then I've gone over the top with water color so the molding paste dries sort of clear to white and It does take a little while to dry so you need to get your hand dryer or your heat tool in there and then yeah I've gone over the top with water color here, but you could use acrylic and And here is matte medium as well where I put collage paper and there's ink So I use all of those in one piece and I will link to the process video for that as well If you'd like to see how I use that the last thing that I've got is This lovely stuff heavy gel gloss gel gloss comes in Heavy-bodied medium and light I believe but I just tend to use heavy gel. It's coming up of a It's almost like it's a bit of matte medium and molding paste but with a gloss finish It's beautiful for collage you can mix it with other colored acrylics if you want to but I just tend to use it clear You stick your collage papers on the paper and then you also create some kind of 3D effect over the top for example This piece here I've used gel gloss medium And if you can see in the light Oh, that's a bit dark So I stuck the collage papers down with the gel gloss and it's lovely and flat But then I've also gone in I put the gel gloss on nice and thick on top and gone in and scratched in texture patterns with a Dabba port mermaid brush tail. I've scraped in the texture patterns and The finish is beautiful and glossy and I don't know if you can get the full effect right now But to see it in real life it is such a beautiful finish I mean it really feels like a gorgeous painting the way it's all glossy and textured and thick and everything Stuck down really well. So it'd be really good to work on top of with acrylic. Let's say And I've used a little bit of jess so I've mixed in in certain places So it has layers where it's more white and then parts where it's a lot more clear. It's lovely It's lovely lovely stuff and I can link to that video as well where I've created that page so you can see how I use it So those are what I would consider to be you know the basic Tools the basic mediums that you use when you're doing mixed media art journaling Now I would also like to say that each of these things has their own characteristics their own personalities and Part of the journey of art journaling is to play with all of those and see which ones you love which ones you respond to There are you know suggested ways to use them But when you get I feel that with any art supply that you have and any sort of medium that it's up to you to push the boundaries of that medium and Take it as far as you want to go use it with all the different things you can and see how that works for you See what brings you joy. That is what this game is all about. That's why we are gentle There's kind of there's rules, but there's also no rules. You do what you feel you want to do next You know so that's it. That is my Arjelink basics on the different mediums that you use. I hope this has been a helpful video and I'd love to hear your feedback Thank you so much guys. See you later