As part of Sketchbook Revival 2026 I participated in the class run by mixed media and collage artist Drew Steinbrecher.

In this class we were encouraged to go out into our environment whether that be an urban environment or a natural one, and take notice of the shapes, textures, colours and contrasts that interested us. We then took photos of these inspirations- here are a few of the pictures I took:

The next step was to edit the photographs to our liking and to print the images using an ordinary ink jet printer. You could print the images on any paper you chose including book pages, tissue paper or newsprint. The course explained how to use feeder sheets to allow you to print on thinner papers.

After printing, we cut out and combined our images with other interesting collage elements. I used gel printed papers I had in my stash. A good tip I learned during this class is that if you lay your prints from the inkjet printer onto a gel plate rolled with gel medium and let them dry for 10 minutes on the plate, when they are removed the ink jet prints will be sealed and won’t run when you get wet medium on them.

I really enjoyed the process of creating my compositions and so I ended up making four mixed media collage artworks in my sketchbook that you can see below:

It was amazing how much inspiration I got from just one walk in my local environment. I ended up with loads of images to use in my art practice. Be sure to check out Drew Steinbrecher and his work if you get chance.