Infusions Mini-Album–Texture Samples Dried, and Stamping

The pieces I made with different textures are now dry, and it’s interesting to see the results.

First of all, the sample with the thick layer of gesso.

I added Lemoncello Infusions to the piece once the gesso was dry, and spritzed it with plenty of water so I could move the Infusions around. I propped up the piece so that the Infusions would pool in the texture. Unfortunately the gesso has badly warped the card so I had to hold it in order to photograph it adequately. Time for the heavy books treatment again.

The sample with the piece of fruit net, duly dried and trimmed.

The glass bead gel medium sample.

The gel medium has dried crystal clear, showing the glass beads to their best advantage. Here’s a detail shot of the piece.

I tried to photograph this to show how the glass beads catch the light, but as usual, anything sparkly or reflective really doesn’t photograph well.

The other pieces didn’t look that different once dried.

Last night I had some fun doing some stamping on Infusions. The Inkylicious clear stamps that I’d ordered had arrived, so I primed them ready for use. The set I used for this project is called “Create a Collage – Meadow” made up of several different stamps that you can mix and match together to produce any selection of wild grasses.

For all the stamped samples I used black archival ink.

For the one using these wild grasses stamps, I created a background using The Sage from Infusions set 1. I really like how this one has turned out.

For the next one, I was really keen to try Ryn’s stamp “Textures – Water Droplets CM-T3” with Infusions. The background was created with In the Navy from Infusions set 2.

I used a wet brush to lift as much colour as I could from inside each water droplet. This proved to be not as easy as when you use the technique with distress inks, but after several applications with the wet brush, I achieved the desired result. Removing the colour in this way makes this extraordinary stamp look even more 3-dimensional, an effect which is further enhanced by the addition of a tiny catchlight on each droplet, using a white Uniball Signo marker pen. I love how this one turned out!

My final stamped piece was created with Heartfelt Creations “Botanical Rose” stamp. This was done on a background made with Frankly Scarlet Infusions from set 2.

Again, I lifted the colour from within the flower outlines using a wet brush. I deliberately left several flowers in this state to show how effective this is. To colour the two large flowers, I used watercolours, and added a little highlight on the centre of each one, using my white Uniball Signo pen again.

Here are the completed stamped samples all together, with the gesso piece at the rear.

The next technique I wanted to do was the woodgrain effect. I think it might have been the card I’ve been using, but this wasn’t as effective as the first time I used it. Here is the page from my Mamhead Mini-Album which shows it best.

With the current samples I struggled to get the desired effect although I used exactly the same method – tapping some Golden Sands Infusions from set 1 onto my non-stick craft sheet and adding a little water, and then applying this with a fan brush in parallel strokes.

This is the finished piece after three applications of the Golden Sands Infusions.

I tried another sample, this time using Sunset Beach  and Golden Sands Infusions, both from set 1. After this was dry, because it didn’t look right, I added some Black Knight Infusions, also from set 1, using the same brushing on technique. It looked like weathered painted wood. I decided to try to enhance the effect with some crackle paste. This is the first time I’ve used this, and I thought it would dry clear, but it didn’t, and it doesn’t seem to have crackled either, but the effect is somewhat interesting.

In an attempt to make it crackle, I added some more to give a thicker layer.

Here are the two samples together.

On the pot it says it takes quite a while to crack, so maybe something will happen! If not, at least I’ve tried and after all, a lot of these samples are experimental and it doesn’t matter if they don’t work; they just won’t find a place in the mini-album.

My final samples today used the same brush-on technique, but using both horizontal and vertical brush strokes to create a mock tartan effect. Again, the effect wasn’t a dramatic as I’d hoped, and I put this down to the card I was using. I must try and remember what sort of card I used for the Mamhead album and try it with that, but in the meantime here are my samples.

The first one was done with two shades of Infusions from set 1, Sunset Beach going on horizontally, and Royal blood going on vertically. The latter had the effect of dramatically darkening the whole sample – quite an interesting effect but not entirely what I wanted!

The second one was done with Are You Cerise Infusions from set 1 being laid down horizontally first, and then Violet Storms from set one going vertically. This over-dominated the piece so I added more Are You Cerise vertically, and some more Violet Storms horizontally. The effect is definitely tartan-like, if a bit subtle!

Here are both samples together.

I do like the vertical blue stripe and the horizontal turquoise one in the one on the left.

I would like to redo all these last brushed-on samples on different card to see if the brush strokes appear more defined.

Still to come: I want to experiment a bit with embossing ink with Infusions, as I have seen some interesting videos on Youtube about this, either stamping, or using Versamark through a stencil.