Lynne Mizera is an self-taught, mixed media artist living in Creston, British Columbia.

This is her first installment in a 4-part series as Artist Strong’s Artist in Residence. You can enjoy more of her art over on instagram @Lynnemizera.

Visit her website at https://www.lynnemizera.com/

I am Lynne. I am an Artist. Four little words that took me a long time to be able to say and then to be able to believe.

Art has always been a part of my life. I grew up in Montreal with an artist mother and was exposed to many different kinds of art, from other artists, art books and art hanging on our walls.  I had a full knowledge of the color wheel by the time I was 10 and took every art class I could until I was 18, but then “life happened”, and although creative all my life in many other areas, I never stopped wanting to paint.  I was 50 when I finally allowed the chains to fall from my artist’s soul and put paint to canvas, painting how I always longed to paint and feeling like I had finally found my place.

But that was just the beginning of my journey and over the next four weeks I want to share with you a bit about how, over the past ten years of being a self-taught, mixed media artist, I was able to find my style, embrace my art and how I broke down my internal barriers to get where I am today… I Am An Artist and I Love How I Paint!

Graffiti Flowers – 2013 – 24×30 My First Mixed Media Painting

THE BEGINNING:

Have you ever found that when you don’t know what you don’t know you just create from your soul?  This painting, my first mixed media piece, was me just playing, putting paint on canvas to create a background to start from and then allowing myself to pull an image from that background.  I knew nothing about the “rules” but just allowed my artist soul to have a voice.  This is still my preferred method of creating… to play with paint and collage papers with no real outcome in mind, and to trust in my own artistic intuition to guide me.

After I created this first big painting I think I scared myself, because I would not allow myself to paint any more canvases but took to my art journals, where I didn’t realize it but I was learning my craft and learning about different products and how they worked together.  Many on-line courses helped to guide me through the maze of many, many art supplies and I slowly learned what I liked and what I didn’t.  But the one common theme was always starting with a colorful background and using stamps and stencils and layers of collage papers, paint and yummy texture to then pull out an image or idea.

Art Journal, Be Who You Are

Art Journal, Beautiful Original

I spent the next few years working in my mixed media art journals and teaching these techniques to other women who longed for a creative outlet.  It was an absolute joy giving them the tools and instruction and then standing back to see them access their own creativity and to watch them bloom.  Come back next week to read about how I took my art from the pages of my art journals to canvas and began to find my own artistic voice and style.

Every couple of months artists show up in our Artist Strong community to share their artistic process, journey, explorations with us over the course of a month.

The goal is to normalize the MANY, VARIED experiences of being an artist.

And if YOU  want to apply to be an Artist Strong Artist Resident, subscribe to our weekly updates to hear about the next time applications are open.