Unraveling the Layers: My Process of Creating Mixed Media Art

By Nimisha Doongarwal

Every Mixed Media Art piece I create is a layered story — stitched from memory, cultural heritage, and the visual language of resilience. My process is rooted in both personal history and global conversations. No two works are ever the same. Here’s a look behind the scenes at how my mixed media art comes to life.

✨ Mixed Media art Begins with Emotion and Research

Each artwork starts with a feeling — a question that lingers or a texture that sparks something deeper. I begin by immersing myself in research—exploring colonial history, migration, and hybrid identity. Through books, videos, and image archives, I collect references: portraits, fabrics, architecture, and symbols.

This research lays the emotional and visual foundation before I ever touch a brush or canvas.

💻 Digital Sketching & Visual Play

With my reference materials in hand, I move into the digital phase. Using Photoshop or Procreate, I manipulate old photographs and textiles—adjusting transparencies, layering textures, and composing early visual drafts.

Digital Study for Colonial Contrast

This is my way of mapping out the energy and emotion of the piece before entering the physical realm.

Final Mixed Media Painting, Colonial Contrast

✂️ The Tactile Phase: Collage, Fabric, and Paint

Once the digital structure feels right, I begin translating it into something physical. I use photo transfers, collage, image layering, and paint to build the surface. Each piece is a slow accumulation of paper, color, and texture.

🧵 Ornate Saris: Weaving Memory into the Work

One of the most meaningful materials I work with is vintage saris — some worn by my mother and grandmother at their weddings, dating back 50–60 years. These heirloom fabrics are rich with zari and zardozi embroidery, adorned with gold and silver threads, pearls, and handcrafted gems.

Close-up of a vintage wedding sari used in my collage. Pearls and metallic thread embroidered directly into the canvas

A handcrafted beaded border detail from an heirloom sari, now part of the artwork

Using these saris isn’t just a visual choice — it’s an act of preservation. They carry stories and lineages that I embed into the very fabric of my work. They allow me to bring the beauty of South Asian craftsmanship into a contemporary Western context.

💎 What Makes My Work Unique: Emotional Value as Material

My work is not just about aesthetics — it’s about emotional resonance. Each piece contains layers of memory, hand-touched materials, and ancestral threads. The process of cutting, stitching, and assembling becomes a ritual — a way to process inherited stories and connect past with present.

This emotional depth — rooted in personal history and tactile storytelling — is what makes each work one of a kind.

🔁 A Back-and-Forth Rhythm

I constantly move between the digital and physical — painting over prints, scanning and adjusting, then returning to the canvas. The process is iterative and emotional. Sometimes a piece reveals itself immediately; other times, it requires letting go and beginning again.

🎯 Why I Keep Creating

Mixed media art gives me a way to hold contradictions — beauty and sorrow, tradition and innovation, displacement and belonging. I create not just to reflect what is, but to reclaim what’s been lost, layered, or overlooked.

When someone encounters one of my works, I want them to feel its weight and intimacy — to sense the generations embedded in its fabric and the contemporary voices stitched between its lines. Want to explore more?

🖼️ View my full portfolio

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🎙️ Learn more about my process.