Infusions Mini-Album–Miscellaneous Techniques

Over the past couple of days I have discovered some further techniques you can do with Infusions.

Kissing

This name always amuses me! It refers to applying a medium on one surface and then pressing another surface onto it while still wet, and then pulling it off so you get a mirror image mono print. Not only is it fun, but it saves on paint etc. too! Here it is with Infusions.

The colours I used were Royal Blood and Golden Sands from set 1, and Olive Tree from set 2, sprinkled onto the card and then spritzed with water.

Dripping

Self-explanatory.

I used Are You Cerise from set 1 as a background, sprinkling the Infusions onto the card and then spritzing it with water fairly liberally to get full coverage, and then heat set it. Then I applied plenty of water along the top edge with a brush, and sprinkled on Black Knight, also from set 1, and held the card vertically so that it ran down. To encourage it to drip where I wanted, I touched the wet edge with the brush. The drips will otherwise tend to follow the course of previous ones and you need to break the surface tension of the water in different places to make new drips flow. Working with the brush, you get more control. I kept applying more water along the top edge with the brush, and tapped the card’s bottom edge on my work surface, which encouraged it to continue flowing.

Infusions with Glimmer Mist

I haven’t used my glimmer mists for ages. When I first started, I made up some home-made ones with distress ink re-inkers and Perfect Pearls in little spray bottles, and was pleased to find that they still worked and hadn’t dried up.

I sprinkled the Infusions onto dry paper as normal – in this case Lemoncello from set 1, and the instead of spritzing with plain water to activate them, I used my spray bottle with a mixture of water, Chipped Sapphire re-inker and Perfect Pearls (the “Perfect Pearl” colour which is a silvery-pearl). I sprayed it on fairly liberally and the blue has mixed with the yellow of the Infusions to create a soft green colour.

Here’s a detail shot in an attempt to show the shimmeriness of this effect.

Painting as watercolours

I tapped out a little of the Infusions on my non-stick craft sheet and made a puddle with water, using a fine brush, and then painted with this onto a stamped image.

I used a couple of stamps from the StampAttack “Fanciful Fans” set using black archival ink. The Infusions I used were Violet Storms, Lemoncello and Emerald Isle from set 1, and Rusty Car and Violetta from set 2. When I had finished, the images looked rather stark against the white card, so I used an Inkylicious Ink Duster to apply Fossilised Amber distress ink around the edges of the card, blending the ink towards the middle.

Infusions on wet paper

Applying the Infusions to wet paper, rather than to dry and then spritzing with water, gives a different effect.

For this sample, I made the paper good and wet and sprinkled on Royal Blood from set 1 and Green Man from set 2. I heat set this and then decided it needed a bit more colour, so I added a small amount of A Bit Jaded from set 1. This method is a lot more difficult to control. You get a wonderful burst of colour but on the wet card this soon disperses and you have to dry it fairly rapidly to keep the radiating pattern. I have been using my old heat gun lately, as it dries things a lot faster than the Tim Holtz Heat Tool, but in this case it would probably be better to use the latter because the blast of hot air is much more gentle and doesn’t move the wet colour around so much.

Brayered Gesso

For my final sample today, I combined Infusions with gesso applied with a brayer.

I used Rusty Car and Slime from set 2, sprinkling the Infusions onto dry card. I put some gesso onto my non-stick craft sheet with a palette knife and spread it out a bit, and then ran my brayer through it so that the roller was covered, and then I rolled it over the Infusions on the card. I spritzed it with water and watched the Infusions begin to activate.

The effect is quite subtle and chalky, with a slight grain to it, indicating the direction of the brayer.

I have a couple more miscellaneous techniques to cover but at this point I ran out of energy and had to stop! I will do these at the beginning of the next session, in which I shall be concentrating on the effect you can get combining Infusions with acrylic paint.