Art Journal Cover by Karen

For today's post I thought it was time I decorated the cover of my art journal. What to do if you want some texture but without things that will catch and tear? Tissue paper and different texture pastes was my answer.

Manila paper tends to suck the colour out of everything and I wanted to have a bit of white space so I started with a layer of white gesso, feathered out so there were no hard lines. Then I added a bit of light background stamping and stamped my title on to tissue paper.

I painted the back of the tissue paper white so that it would stand out against a coloured background...

and I added Turquoise acrylic paint to the cover, again feathering out to avoid hard edges.

For a pop of contrast and some texture, I mixed Magenta paint in to transparent relief paste (now called Design-It) and stenciled this over the other colours.

To take the title stand out more, I added a light touch of Cadium Yellow and used gel medium to stick down the tissue paper adding a coat under and over to be sure it was well adhered. I added a third lot of stenciling too.

Mixing Yellow and Scarlet paint for a bright orange, I added more stenciling and doodled round the stars and circles with black and white pens. I used Black Acrylic Paint to sponge round the edges of the cover.

For more texture and contrast, I stenciled Black Expand-IT paste on to the cover. I also added lines with the edge of a paint knife to the 'Art' letters, and heated the Expand-IT to puff it up for some volume.

I am sure I will continue to doodle or add to this over time but, for now, it makes me happy that my journal has a decorated cover in some of my favourite bright colours. It gives a hint of what is inside. More of that another day!

Bye for now
Karen
x

Soft Form Relief Paste	EXpandit 3D expanding medium	StazOn Jet Black	Plastic Painting Knives	Golden Matt medium
white gesso	Heat Gun	Golden haired nylon brushes	Eco Acrylic Paint

Fun Effects with Aztec Paints - Guest Designer Gail

Hello.  My name is Gail aka ionabunny and I am currently at 36,000 feet or there abouts!  Isn't technology wonderful!!!  I am so excited to be guest designing here at the ColourCraft blog.  If you know me then you probably know that I'm usually a CAS kinda gal making cards and smaller things.   So when Clare said that the monthly theme was 'layers' I decided to get out of my comfort zone and take that challenge.

Uploading photos at 36,000 ft is a bust........

Ah, here we go.......  Here's my finished layout

I started with a piece of 12x12" Blackberry Bazzill.  I used Colourcraft Transparent DesignIT paste through a Tando stencil and let it dry.  Then I took blue and pink Aztec Paint and used a piece of tissue to swipe them across the paper.  A few more swipes and dabs and I was happy.  

I used some Rubber Dance stamps and stamped the large linked circles with white acrylic paint and the small bubbles with black acrylic paint.  Remember to wash the paint off your stamps as soon as you are finished or there could be rubber stamp death!!  Then I put some more of the blue Aztec paint on my craft mat and using the edge of my acrylic block I made some vertical and horizontal lines. 

Right, I know she's lying down on the job but this was the easiest way to photograph this without ending up with loads of photo's.  I took a piece of A4 white paper, just your normal printer paper, and I used a few drops of the blue Aztec paint and a credit card (expired!) to spread a thin layer of paint on the paper.  When it had dried I put the paper over a zebra print embossing folder, added a generous amount of the pink paint to one edge of the paper and spread it with the credit card again and wow!  pink and blue zebra print!!   Loved how the paint picked up the texture.  Then I used this stencil to draw around the girl shape, gave her a black shadow and cut her out.  

I cut Sizzix Rare Butterfly and Fanciful Flight from vellum, and then cut two more Rare Butterflies from paper I had coloured with red, turquoise, emerald green, yellow and orange Brusho's.

This was such fun to make.  Hope you like it and feel inspired to try something new today.  Thanks for looking.  Hugz

Ginkgo Leaves Autumn Canvas by Karen

This project grew out of a canvas (25 cm square) that I had collaged with various papers, added a bit of blue paint over the tissue paper, then abandoned. I also wanted to incorporate ginkgo leaves using this dried one as a model.

I started by coating the entire canvas in white paint, spraying it with water, then dabbing off with paper towel so that it all has a unifying layer of white but the layers below are still visible.

At this point, I broke the 'rules' of gelli plate printing! You may read that you shoudn't use water-based paint (or ink) on your gelli plate because it beads: But you can use that to your advantage! For example, here is Colourcraft's Aztec metallic paint brayered on the gelli plate and a print pulled from it. I love the effect it gives!

I decided to use this effect to give interest to my leaves. I brayered some paint as above, then left it about an hour to dry on the gelli plate (water based paints take longer to dry on the gelli plate than acrylic paints). I then added some dots of Magenta and Yellow Acrylic paint and brayered these across the dried metallic paint and immediately pulled the print on some heavy weight paper.

The result has the colours merged to a lovely warm colour along with the dots of metallic paint which has been lifted from the plate in a random pattern and also has texture: It is difficult to see in the photo but the little golden spots stand proud of the colour below. This could be used for so many things!

While the paint had been drying on the gelli plate, I stenciled the canvas with white Soft form relief paste and left that to dry.

Once everything was dry, I mixed the same colours with a touch of blue to make a slightly darker shade and used this to paint the sides and edges of the canvas, pulling the colour in and over the stencilled areas.

I cut out some ginkgo shaped leaves from my gelli plate print and used a wooden skewer to bend the leaves and add texture before gluing them down.

I hope this has given you some ideas for using your paints and the gelli plate in different ways: Have fun experimenting!

Aztec eco metallic paint starter paint	Eco Acrylic Paint	Gelli Plate 5" x 7"	Rubber Roller	Plastic Painting Knives
Soft Form Relief Paste

Paint and Paste stenciled background card by Karen

Hi all! I had a play with my Eco Acrylic paints and Soft Form Relief Paste to create a card today and I remembered to take photos along the way so I can share the stages with you!

The strong colours I chose are not at their full saturation on these first layers as I misted water over my watercolour paper to help me blend the colours out so there is more of a wash of colour, one of Phthalo Green and one where I have pushed the Magenta and Cadmium Yellow around to get orange tones in between them.

Once dry, I spread Shimmering Aquamarine Soft Form Relief Paste through a stencil over the Phthalo Green layer.

While this was drying, I stamped flowers over the other painted layer: Be sure to use an ink that is resistant to water for this stage.

I cut them out leaving a bit of a margin all round. Lovely mix of tones but, for me, a little bland until the next layer of paint is added:

To make them more vibrant and add depth, I then repainted some parts of the flowers with the same colours that I used in the first layer and a fine brush. This makes the different layers blend together but keeping depth between them.

I then decided not to use all the flowers but to add one of my favourite text stamps instead. I blended the Cadmium and Magenta together again on another piece of paper and stamped my text over the top. I added some dots to the flowers with a white pen and glued everything on to a layer of black on a white card to make all the colours really pop!

The sentiment translates as 'If life is a garden, friends are the flowers'.
Stamps and stencil from PaperArtsy.

Soft Form Relief Paste

Golden haired nylon brushes

Eco Acrylic Paint

StazOn Jet Black