May Week Three

Last we took a look at watercolour (or water soluble) mediums. A word that you might see on product packaging is “Aquarelle” or “Aquarellable” which will tell you that it works with water.
Because I used them in my page this week, I just want to take a second to talk about Gel Pastels. Faber Castell have a well known product called Gelatos, which come in lots of yummy colours and can be diluted or activated with water, or used straight from the tube. Gelatos are great, but while they are really easy to get in the USA, some of us in other parts of the world have trouble getting them, and they are often expensive. If you want to try Gelatos, but can’t get them or can’t afford them, I suggest you check out the kids art section in big department stores and look for Crayola's Slick Stix, or any other product that says Gel Pastels or silky smooth pastels. All the ones I have found come in some kind of twisting, lipstick-style form. They will come in a limited palette of primary and secondary colours, but you can play with them and decide if you love them enough to invest the time, effort and money into getting the more gorgeous (and trendy) Gelato colours.

https://youtu.be/r915L4N5vL4

 

I drew the bird onto the foam from an image I found on Pinterest. I like this technique of stamp making, it reminds me of the lino-printing I did in high school art, but without the risk of injury from the sharp cutting tools. I think I will probably end up adding a little something to the bird stamp on the page, but I haven’t worked out what he needs yet. I don’t want to lose any of the translucence of the stamp, I love that I can see the background colours through the stamped image. 

Thank you to Jo Hardstaff and Maria Bozikis for the inspiration for the chevron stamp. It's my new favourite :)

The wording is what I decided I would do if I ruled the world. For me, joy comes from gratitude and is the perfect antidote to hate and jealousy. 

I'd probably give everyone a magic packet of Tim Tams as well, because arting requires energy:

And here is the best way to eat a Tim Tam (trust me):

 It's called the Tim Tam Slam. Aussie's get it.

Happy Arting!

April Week Three

Hello Beautiful Artists!
I have loved seeing everyone embracing this month's challenge in the Driver Reviver Facebook Group. Many people are stepping out of their comfort zones and experimenting with new techniques. 

This week I have a really easy technique for getting an artsy-looking pencil portrait onto a page without having to draw anything.

You will need:

• A photo with good definition and contrast: it can be a photo of yourself, or from a magazine. It can be any size, but bigger is easier. It is also easier if it is printed onto normal copier paper.
• A piece of tracing paper
• A soft or heavy gel medium (eg, Liquitex or Golden Matte Medium, Reeves Gloss Gel Medium).
• A plastic card to scrape with (eg., an old loyalty or credit card)
• Pencils: 2B graphite or soft coloured pencils + eraser
• Masking tape, washi tape or painter's low tack tape
• A prepared background in your journal.
• Optional: a light box or a window

Create a background however you would like. Here is what I did:
I cut scraps of patterned paper into rectangles of various sizes and glued down with gel medium:

Then I used Inktense pencils to define the edges and activated the ink with water:

I used Inktense because once they have been activated with water, then dried, the colour is permanent. The surface of my page was also glossy because of the gel medium I used and normal watercolour wouldn't adhere to the surface. Oil pastels would also have worked.
I was aiming for a background that was interesting without being dark or bold. I also wanted to see if the layered paper would give an interesting texture to the page.

Once my background was ready I prepared the portrait then adhered it the background. Here is the video:

Notes:

• The tracing paper will wrinkle when it goes onto the glue. 
• I have found that using gel medium results in less wrinkles than wetter glues like Mod Podge or PVA.
• I recommend putting the glue onto the background, not onto the tracing paper. 
• Tearing the image out of the tracing paper will feather the edges and once glued down, it will look like the image was drawn onto the background, rather than glued on.
• Be generous with the glue.
• Tracing paper is surprisingly tough even when it is wet from the glue. Don't be scared to scrape it firmly to get the image as flat as possible.

Here is another example, this time traced in graphite and stuck onto a painted background:

 

You can see in this close up that there are some small wrinkles in the tracing paper. I don't think you can get it completely smooth.

 The finished journal page:

Another example of a graphite tracing of a magazine photo. It was then coloured with paint and pencils after being stuck down. You can see that the wrinkles are larger in this transfer; I used Mod Podge Matte to adhere it. Can you also see how the edges of the tracing paper are very obvious? I cut the image out with scissors instead of tearing the edges.

I hope you will give this technique a try. If you don't have gel medium, and are wondering if it can be used for anything else, the answer is : Yes! Lots of things.
I will be sharing other techniques in the coming months that use this specific product. Good news is that unlike paints and paper, I have found that low cost does not equal low quality when it comes to this product, so if you can find a cheaper brand to experiment with, go for it!

Have fun with your art everyone, and I will leave you with this that I shared in the Driver Reviver Group a few days ago. I think we can all benefit from reading it again. Print it out and stick it in front of your art desk: 

March Week Two: Spray Inks

So many questions about Spray Inks! This is a huge tutorial, so I hope you have a cup of your favourite. Let's go!

I asked the question in the Driver Reviver Facebook Group and I have addressed each question separately. The links will take you to a relevant video, if you are interested in learning more about a particular topic. The first video below is a the tutorial from me covering the basics of using sprays and how to Not Get Mud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCinXbXvqXc

  Q. How do I not get mud when I use more than one colour? 
See video above.

Q. What is the difference between spray inks, spray paints and stains?
Really, I don't think there is a difference, at least not for our purposes. They are all colourants with different properties, some shimmer, some are more opaque than others, some are permanent, some are water reactive. It really is about the delivery method here. If you want to know more about the science of what makes a paint a paint as opposed to an ink, I suggest reading this.

Q.What can I use to make my own Sprays ?
By experimenting with what you have. There are lots of art supplies that can double as DIY sprays. I have used:

• Acrylic paints (Lumiere metallic and plain)
• Daler Rowney Artist Acrylic Inks
• Food colouring
• Re-inkers (for stamp pads and pens)

• Some people add a dollop of glue such as Mod Podge of something similar (gum arabic) but I have never done this, so I cannot tell you if it makes any difference to the finished product. 
• You can also make your own shimmer sprays by adding a product called Perfect Pearl Powder. 
• The ratio of water to colourant will determine how the finished spray looks. 
• You have to experiment.
• The food colouring gives a very bright translucent spray and is reactivate when re-wet. 
• The sprays made from acrylic paints and inks are pretty much waterproof once dry.
•  The Acrylic Inks (dropper bottles, bottom right of the photo) make a spray with great depth and coverage, I think because they are already very liquid, but with a high concentration of colour pigments. 
• Good empty spray bottles to look out for are the Ranger Mini Misters, or Kaisercraft spray bottles. 
• You can also find empty spray bottles at discount/dollar stores and on eBay. 

Q. How do I stop inks reactivating/moving around when I add another (wet) layer? 
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you are using Dylusions sprays or Distress range (the Ink pads, Stains and Sprays are all the same formula), the answer is: you can't.  
These particular inks are designed to reactivate when re-wet to be able to execute particular techniques. The good news is there are other sprays that are permanent when dry heat set: Adirondack Color Wash and Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio. If you added a Dylusions spray over a base layer Color Wash or Flat Fabio, the first layer would not be affected. If you reverse the order of the sprays, however, the two would mix.

OK, so after much searching I have found a video tutorial that tests three products/methods to seal Dylusions. 
To summarise: Golden Air Brush Medium is applied with a spray bottle; Golden Semi Gloss Soft Gel Medium is applied with a Gelli Arts printing plate and Golden Matte Medium is mixed with water and sprayed on. The first two work better than the last.
Just warning you, the video is 24 minutes long, and there are no cheap solutions here, but if you REALLY want to be able to do this, here you go:

(The 'jelly plate' she uses in the first method is a Gelli Arts printing plate. In a few months we will be looking at various monoprinting techniques, one of which will be the gelatine plate, so hopefully you can contain your curiosity for a while.)

Occupational Health and Safety  
(thank you Sue, for giving me the name of this section)

Contain the Mess

• Cover your work surface and surrounds. Sprays travel much further than you expect. 
• Move your iPad and your phone well out of the way.  
• You can also use a box to spray in.

• Wear old clothes or an apron. You can also wear gloves if you don't want to end up with hands like this. Many inks stain the skin and can take a day to come off.

How to Treat and Prevent Clogging

• KEEP THE LIDS ON YOUR SPRAYS. This will help prevent clogging. 
• Wipe the sprayer before putting the lid back on. 
• If you do get a clogged sprayer, pull it apart and soak it in warm water for a while. 
• If you lose the lid from a bottle, cover the spray hole with a piece of tape to prevent the spray from drying in the hole.
• Shake glimmer sprays well before spraying so that the glimmer is thoroughly dispersed in the liquid and not sitting on the bottom of the bottle ready to be sucked up all at once. 
• Tattered Angles, the makers of the original Glimmer Mist, recommend shaking the bottle from side to side (like a bell) NOT up and down. 

Q. What are some different or unusual ways to use sprays?

• Scribble Spray Technique (Dyan Reaveley)
• Paint with them (like watercolor)
• Drip alcohol onto a sprayed page to create texture 
• Flick the liquid onto a page with a fan brush.
• Use a dip pen and nib to write with the liquid.

Q. How do I get soft colours?

• Add a white spray
• Add water, lots of water, both before you spray the colour and after.

Can I stamp with Spray Inks?
Yes! Watch this:

February Week Four: Lettering Transfer Technique

Hi Everyone!

I'm getting this out early as we are expecting a cyclone to blow in overnight and we might be without power for a few days if the flooding that is being predicted comes to fruition or power lines go down. If anyone on the Journey lives in or has loved ones living in an affected area, I hope that you have weathered the storm OK! Don't worry about me, we are well prepared for this type of thing, and have a generator to keep our fridges and freezers going, plenty of food and cold beer water to see us through.

This week is just a quick video showing how I finished off the spread I started in Week 2. I also show how I transfer my computer-printed quote onto the page using homemade graphite paper. If you are struggling with lettering, this is a really good shortcut to know. 

Here is a recap of the steps.
You will need: 

• soft graphite pencil or crayon (I use a 12B, that's really soft)
• hard pencil or ball point pen
•  your chosen wording printed onto plain printer paper

1. Trim the excess paper away from the words. This makes placement  easier to judge.
2. Cover the back of the printed paper completely with a heavy layer of graphite.
3. Place your wording carefully on your page and use a small piece of washi tape or painter's masking tape to hold the paper in place.
4. Carefully trace over the wording with your hard pencil or ballpoint pen. Lift the paper regularly to check that you are using enough pressure.
5. Go over the transferred lettering with a paint pen.
6. Use an eraser to remove the graphite from the page, and then touch up any areas of the lettering that need it. 
   

You can also buy graphite transfer paper which is much less messy than making it yourself. I have also tried carbon paper but I haven't had much success getting a clean transfer over acrylic paint. Let me know if you try and get a good result!

See you all in Driver Reviver!

February Week Two: Backgrounds

The Stopover this month is 10 different techniques to apply to backgrounds of journal pages.

• In the video I layer all 10 on top of each other on one page, but that was just because it was easy for me to demonstrate like that.
• I would suggest picking up to 5 at a time to layer together.
• The techniques can be applied in any order.
• I used only acrylic paints and inks as colour mediums, but other mediums can be substituted.
• Most of the tools I used came out of the recycle bin. 

Technique 1: Clingfilm Scrunch

1. Paint your page/s with a layer of retarder medium (gel or fluid, doesn’t matter)
2. Take a piece of cling-film larger than your page and brush on 2 or three acrylic paints in a random way. Don’t blend the colours.
3. Place the cling-film, paint side down onto your page/s and scrunch it so the paint spreads around underneath.
4. Carefully peel off the cling-film and lay it down onto another journal page or a piece of paper to remove the paint. Repeat this step until you run out of paint or paper. These prints can used as backgrounds, or cut up and used in collage.

Technique 2: Brayer

1. I find a hard rubber brayer works best for this technique. Put a small blob of paint onto a flat surface such as a pad of palette paper and roll the brayer through the paint.
2. Roll onto the page, go back and forth through the main area of paint until it is spread out thinly.
3. If it doesn’t look right, keeping rolling. Lots of people stop too soon and have blobs of paint on the paper.

Technique 3: Plastic Sponging

1. Use a palette knife or brush to spread a thin layer of paint on your palette
2. Scrunch up a piece of plastic into a ball and dip it into the paint.
3. Blot the paint onto the page.

Technique 4: Scraping

1. Squeeze out some paint onto the edge of an old card, a palette knife or a piece of card from the recycling. Or, pick up paint from your palette with the edge of the card/knife.
2. Scrape the paint onto the page.
3. Try dragging it from the edge of the page to the middle
4. Try scraping it on in all different directions.
5. Try loading your card with two different colours and scraping them on at the same time.

Technique 5: Stamping with Recycling

1. Paint a piece of bubblewrap and use it as a stamp
2. Peel the paper off one side of a peice of corrugated cardboard, paint it and use it as a stamp.

Technique 6: Tissue Paper Collage

1. Dressmaking patterns are printed on tissue paper, and they are available at op shops (thrift stores). You can also recycle the tissue that comes in gifts and shoe boxes.
2. I like to use a plastic card to scrape a thin layer of glue or paint onto the page, then smooth the tissue onto the top. 
3. You can also use a brush, but don't work the tissue too much or it will tear as it gets very delicate once wet.
4. Don't try to smooth out the wrinkles too much, this is part of the effect.

Technique 7: Masking

1. Cut a scallop from a piece of recycling (eg. a letter from the bank, or magazine cover).
2. Place the mask onto the page and brush paint over it in one direction only so the paint doesn't travel under the mask.

Technique 8: Dripping 

1. In the video I am using a fine-tipped bottle filled with fluorescent pink paint thinned with water (about 50:50). 
2. You can buy plastic pipettes and eye droppers cheaply, try a chemist (drugstore) if you can't find any at your art/craft/discount store. I have seen them on Ebay as well. 
3. Water down some acrylic paint, suck it up with the pipette
4. Hold your page at about a 45 degree angle and drop the liquid onto the page, allowing it to run.
5. Tap the page on the desk to encourage the paint to flow. 
6. Spray water onto the drip to encourage the flow (don't spray close to the page).

Technique 9: Stencilling

1. I applied the paint through the punchinella with a piece of Ranger's Cut'n'Dry foam. A cosmetic sponge works the same.
2. Spread the paint out in a thin layer, dip the sponge in the paint, then dab almost all of it off.
3. Hold the stencil steady with one hand and apply the paint in an up and down motion with the other. You can also try rubbing the paint on, but it can travel under the stencil.
4. Move around the page applying the stencil in different sized areas.

Technique 10: Flick and Splatter

1. Move anything on your desk that you don't want paint on, or cover it up (iPads, phones etc)
2. Water down a drop of paint until it is the consistency of thin cream.
3. Load a brush with the watery paint, hold something hard in your other hand (eg., another large brush), and tap the loaded brush onto the object over the page.
4. Hold it close to get splatters that are close together, hold it further up in the air to get a wider spread of droplets.
5. Reload the brush with watery paint, then flick the paint off onto the page, like you are cracking an imaginary whip.

Next week I will show you how I finished off my art journal spread with a quote.

January Week Three: Driver's Ed

Resists

Remember this is just what I used, and you can substitute what you have. I will put a list of suggestions for substitutes at the end.

• White Crayola crayon
• Inks: Shimmerz Sprays, Glimmer Mist Sprays, Distress Stain, StazOn
• Acrylic paint
• Stencils: Diamonds (Kaisercraft) and Alphabet (generic)
• Plain white card (to make a tag)
• Text/Dictionary page
• Gluestick
• Clear Embossing Inkpad
• Embossing powders: Clear and White
• Stamps: Inkadinkadoo and Kaisercraft 

How To Make the Background

1. Use a white crayon (or your substitute) to randomly fill in the pattern all over your background.
2. Apply colour over the background. Help colours blend together with water.
3. Create texture on the background using inkpads and a variety of texture stamps or found and upcycled objects.
4. Create a chunkier block of pattern with the alphabet stencil and spray ink or acrylic paint.
5. Create contrast between the tag and the background by making one a lot darker in colour than the other.

How To Make the Tag

1. Adhere a text page from a dictionary or another old book onto the tag.
2. Stamp an image in Clear Embossing Ink.
3. Shake Clear Embossing Powder over the stamped image, return excess to the jar.
4. Heat the powder until it melts.
5. Repeat the above steps with a phrase stamp and white embossing powder.
6. When the embossing had cooled completely, colour the tag with water-based mediums such as spray inks, watercolour paints, dye inkpads, or Distress Stain.
7. Punch a hole in the top of your tag, tie ribbon.

Resist Medium Substitutes

• White Rub-ons: Works like a heat embossed stamped image. Gives a clear and crisp image with watercolour over the top.
• Wet glue: You can use a sponge to apply the glue through a stencil, or put the glue into a fine-tip squeeze bottle and draw with it. This is an excellent alternative if you don’t have any stamps or embossing powders.
• Vaseline: sponge or scrape Vaseline over the stencil. Spray inks over the top give clearer results. Brushing paint over the top will smear the Vaseline, no matter how careful you are. This is not wrong! It just gives a different result.
• Oil pastel or plain white candle: The pastel resists the colour because oil and water don’t mix (just like wax and water don’t mix) 
• White acrylic paint. The difference between putting the paint over the top of the colour as opposed to underneath is the paint over the top will reactivate water-based colouring agents and end up tinted; whereas putting the paint down first will keep it white.

My Experiments:

1. Tag coloured with Distress Ink (inkpads).
2. Images clear heat embossed (clear embossing ink, clear embossing powder).
3. White acrylic paint over the top.

The white acrylic reactivated the water based Distress Ink, so the top layer ended up tinted. It was difficult to take the paint off the embossed area only to leave a clear image. I think the results are worth it though.

  

1.  Text paper adhered to tag.
2. Images clear heat embossed.
3. Dylusions spray inks over the top.

 The text paper behind the images is too busy. This may have worked OK with a less detailed stamp.

1.  Apply white rub-ons to a white tag.
2. Apply colour over the top.

This is easy to do and an excellent alternative to heat embossing if you like the clean crisp appearance of a stamp, but don’t have any suitable images, or heat embossing tools.

 

1. White acrylic paint stippled through a detailed stencil.
2. Watercolour over the top.

The uneven application of paint gives a great background effect.

1. White acrylic paint stippled through a stencil.
2. Watercolour over the top.

The larger holes in this stencil allowed a heavier application of the paint. Too heavy in places as it traveled underneath the stencil and created blobs. This uneven effect is perfect for a background. 

1. Clear glue applied from the bottle.
2. Watercolour over the top.

This is very thick glue, like a gel and the word is raised. If you want to draw a finer detailed picture or word, use Glossy Accents, Glossy Mod Podge or a similar glue that dries clear.