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.

Card Factory–Card from Recycled Wedding Service Sheet

In my stash I’ve got various old service sheets from weddings etc., some of which were printed on nice card or paper that was too good to throw away. I have a few of this particular one, A4 folded to A5 size, and some sheets that are blank on the back, so I glued an A5 sheet inside to cover the printing – this would also serve to strengthen it, as the card isn’t that thick for supporting embellishments etc. The card is cream-coloured, with a slight texture, and is slightly mottled.

Also in my stash I still have some absolutely ghastly duplex (double-sided) card that I posted about ages ago – the card itself is super quality, really thick and stiff, but the colours! Oh my goodness. Get your sunglasses out, folks. I’ve decided to use the orange side of this piece, rather than the bright cerise pink (whoever thought of putting those two garish colours together??!) and tone it down with lots of distressing, stencilling, glimmer misting, etc. etc. – it will be very experimental, adding layers until I’m happy with it.

I began by distressing the edges of the service sheet, front and back, inside and out, with Tea Dye Distress Ink. This showed up a few little creases in the card, but I don’t mind that – it adds to the vintage, distressed effect.

I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into the ghastly orange card (well, I suppose that would be one way to distress it!) – first step, distress with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, dabbing all over with an Inkylicious Ink Duster to give a nice mottled effect.

I repeated the process with Dusty Concord Distress Ink – since orange and purple are complimentary colours, when mixed, they form a shade of brown. To darken it further, I added some Black Soot Distress Ink. In each case, I used a dabbing, stibbling motion with the ink duster.

It’s starting to look a bit like leather now. Time for a bit of stencilling, I think.

I painted on a thin layer of the beige acrylic glaze left over from my Remembrance page in my art journal, laid a stencil over the top and spritzed it with water, and then blotted and wiped it off through the stencil.

After this, I painted some glaze on the un-stencilled parts, placed the stencil on top, spritzed with water, and wiped off, leaving the paint under the stencil. I blotted the whole lot off with damp kitchen paper and this is the result.

Now time for some Glimmer Mist and Perfect Pearls. I sprayed it lightly in patches with my DIY Glimmer Mist made from Wild Honey Distress Re-Inker and Perfect Pearl coloured Perfect Pearls which gave it a silvery metallic sheen – the Wild Honey didn’t show up much because it was already rather dark. I need to mix up some new DIY Glimmer Mist with a more bronzy Perfect Pearls, I think.

I dabbed at it randomly with my small Perfect Medium pad (clear embossing ink) and then brushed it lightly with dry Cappuccino Perfect Pearls and spritzed it with water, and rubbed it gently to soften any sharp edges. It now has a more generalised random pearlescent sheen which I think I am happy with.

I think this is definitely a background I’d like to use in my art journal – nice and grungey and dark, with subtle shades and shimmers. I think it needs some stamping or embellishment in dull gold or rust.

All the stamps I used are from Designs by Ryn. First of all I stamped it twice with her “Water Droplets” stamp from her Textures range (CM-T3), using black archival ink. Then I used two of her gorgeous moth stamps from her Butterflies and Moths range – the top one is “Luna” (CM-B2) and the bottom two are “Tsuki” (CM-B5), stamping with Versamark and heat embossing with copper embossing powder.

The piece was matted onto the distressed card base, and I picked out the tiny catch-lights on each water droplet with my white Uni-ball marker pen. To finish the piece, I painted the moths with Perfect Pearls from my palette: the top moth is done with Berry Twist, a simply gorgeous dichroic one which turns from purple to blue according to the light. The middle moth was painted with Mint, and the bottom one with Turquoise. All the moth bodies were painted with Plum, another dichroic one which alternates between purple and a slightly more turquoise-blue than Berry Twist. This is the finished card. Unbelievable that it started with that horrendous garish orange card! I’m so glad I didn’t throw it away.

 

Finally, a detail shot of the stamping and embossing.

Art Journal Page–Tyger, Tyger

What is the essence of tyger-ness?

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? And what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile his work to see?
Did He who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake, 1757-1827

This has always been one of my favourite poems. I remember having to learn it by heart at school, and from an early age I was captivated by the archaic spelling of “Tyger” – somehow any tiger spelt “tyger” would have to be far more tigery than just any normal tiger, spelt “tiger.” This poem expresses for me the Essence of Tyger-ness.

What better subject to inspire an art journal page? It was a fairly daunting prospect, because I have never painted a tiger before, still less a Tyger, and I wanted to do it justice!

Here is the page with the elements mapped out in pencil. Apart from the tyger head, I knew that most of it would be obliterated by the inks and paints, but I needed to know where everything went, so this photograph served as a guide as I worked.

So that no white paper would show through the background, I began by inking it, using Mowed Lawn Distress Ink (from the Summer seasonal collection), using an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

You will see that I have slipped a sheet of scrap paper underneath each page – this is to protect the pages underneath.

Using my leaf trail stencil, I added more Distress Ink, this time Pine Needles, to create some leaves around the tiger’s head. Ink Dusters are great for this, because you can stipple away to your heart’s content with no danger of snagging or moving the stencil.

To get a more jungly effect, I added some more leaves, this time stamped ones, using a combination of Mowed Lawn, Crushed Olive and Forest Moss Distress Inks.

At this stage I freaked out a bit, because the leaves were coming out much too strong! I did multiple stamps with each application of ink, to give an effect of depth, but I wasn’t too happy with it at this stage. I cut a scrap of paper approximately the size of the tiger head and used it as a mask, and sprayed the whole page with my Forest Moss DIY glimmer mist – panic, panic – it came out MUCH too dark, so I quickly blotted it off, and the effect was a lot better all round.

The next step was the painting. I began by blocking out the main colours of the tiger’s head, before filling in the features with a finer brush. This is the only photo I took of the process, because I got carried away with what I was doing and forgot to take any more until I’d finished!

You can see that I also started painting the frame. The effect I was after was a suggestion of flames (“burning bright”) in tiger-stripe colours.

This is the completed tiger. I decided to add some more paint to the background, to darken it a bit behind the tiger, to add some contrast and give a more dramatic effect, and I also added some painted leaves in the foreground, to give the tiger a more menacing appearance as he emerges from the jungle undegrowth. I also painted the border at this stage, and again forgot to photograph the different stages! Then it was time to start on the journaling.

(The colour balance isn’t quite right on this photo – it’s a bit on the blue side – see the following photo for a truer rendition.)

On my last journal page, I did the journaling with white acrylic paint, but as this text is smaller, I wanted to try and make my white marker pen work. It is a broad white Uni-Ball Signo. A major problem I’ve experienced with this in the past is that if you try and use it on a water-based medium such as a Distress Ink background, the marker, also being water-based, blends with the underlying colour and you can’t get a true white. I had thought of spraying fixative onto the work before using it, but in this case there seemed to be sufficient acrylic paint and mica powder to prevent this from happening. I went over it again just to make sure, and I found the pen worked better if I didn’t press too hard, which tended to push the ink away from the centre of the line. I’d be very interested to hear what other people use to achieve such good results with their white text.

Finally I outlined the white text with my 08 Zig Millennium permanent black marker that I use for zentangles – no problem with this as it’s not water-based.

Here is the finished art journal page. The colour is a lot more accurate on this photo.

I hope I have captured the essence of tyger-ness!

Perfect Pearls–Preparing for Use

Now that I have got my lovely big selection of Perfect Pearls (still missing some colours but I’ve certainly got enough to be going on with for now), I needed to prepare them so I could use them with maximum versatility.

The first thing to do was to remove the barcode label from each pot, which acted as a seal. Why, oh why can’t they use peelable labels??!! What a nightmare peeling them off! They were very hard to remove and left a nasty sticky residue, which had to be wiped off with some Crafter’s Companion Stick Away sprayed onto a piece of kitchen paper. The whole thing took an inordinate amount of time… (There are some things I have endless patience for, but not this.)

That done, I took some scraps of black card and cut them to approximately 1.5 x 2 inches, and wrote the name of the individual colours on each one with my embossing pen, and then applied the respective Perfect Pearl with the soft brush designed for the purpose. When they were all done, I spritzed them with water to fix the powder (which activates the binding agent, which I am reliably informed is Gum Arabic).

The black card shows off the colours to their best advantage, applied in this way. Unfortunately the picture doesn’t do them justice – they are gorgeous and really glow with that metallic sheen that Perfect Pearls possess. Some of the colours, notably Plum, Kiwi and Berry Twist, are dichroic, and change colour as you turn them in the light – I think the powder is acting as a diffraction grating in the same way as butterfly wings and peacock feathers, whose colours are not due to pigment, but to the surface breaking up the light waves and diffracting them into rainbow colours. Beautiful!

Next step was to punch a small hole in the corner of each one and bind them as a little swatch book for future reference. I can move the “pages” around and bring out different ones to compare how they go together.

Next problem – where am I going to store all my new Perfect Pearls? Too many now, to go in the small drawer I used to use for them. For now, they’ve gone in a redundant cardboard box that became too small for what was in it before!

Now I was ready to create my Perfect Pearls Palette, following Christie’s excellent instructions on her blog.

This is going to make using my Perfect Pearls as watercolours so much easier! I decided on a layout, spreading out the pots of Perfect Pearls in order and making a plan. I deliberately left gaps for the colours not yet in my collection, should I want to add them later. I arranged them in groups of type and colour.

Next I designed a label to go inside the lid. For this, I used Serif PagePlus, my desktop publishing software. The circles are 1 inch in diameter, exactly the same size as the depressions in the palette.

The straight lines are cutting guides. The sheet had to be cut into four as the palette has four ridges across the inside of the lid and a single sheet would not lie flat. Christie used her Dymo label maker to create small transparent labels for each colour, but I do not have one of these, so I this was my solution. After cutting the sheet into the four sections, I rounded the corners and glued each one into its respective space, lining up the printed circles with the circular depressions in the palette, using a small dab of Pinflair gel glue in each corner. I have created labels for all the available colours of Perfect Pearls, although I do not yet have them all; if I want to add to my collection, the spaces are available for them. I have uploaded this template to my Skydrive, and this can be freely downloaded if anyone wants to follow this tutorial.

Printed on inkjet acetate which has a coating, they were glued inside the lid of the box with the coated (printed) side against the plastic of the lid, so that the printing is protected, and shows through the lid the right way round.

Here is the palette with the labels attached.

Here is the dry powder being mixed with water in the palette.

You can see that I’ve made a bit of a mess of this. Christie recommends putting quite a lot of powder in, and then adding the water, but after doing this for the first one, I found it much easier to put in a smaller amount, add some water, then some more powder, some more water, etc. until there was enough – mixing it was then a lot less messy. Also, I didn’t have a water dropper bottle like hers, so I thought I’d spritz it with water – biiiig mistake – DON’T do this!! The spray squirted the Perfect Pearls powder all over the place! (Hence the mess being even worse.) Eventually I found an eye dropper which worked perfectly. I also used my little plastic glue spatula which was ideal because it was flexible, and square at the end so it got right into the corners of the depressions in the palette. I used a plastic teaspoon to ladle the powder into the palette.

The completed palette being left to dry. (You can see that my technique improved as I progressed through the palette! Definitely less messy.)

Christie recommends leaving it to dry before attempting to clean up any mess, and then gently blowing or brushing away any powder. If any of the mess was wet, and stuck on, it can be cleaned away with a damp cotton bud (Q-tip).

When they are dry, these Perfect Pearls in the palette can be used as one would use a watercolour box, with a wet brush to pick up the colour. I intend using my water brushes (that I use to colour my zentangles with Derwent Inktense pencils) because it will be a lot more convenient than normal brushes, and I will be able to do it away from my ARTHaven.

The third way that I use Perfect Pearls is in the form of DIY Glimmer Mists – I did a tutorial about this way back when I first started, before I even had my ARTHaven, following a tutorial of Tim Holtz, mixing Perfect Pearls, Distress Re-Inkers and water in spritzing bottles – you can vary the combinations ad infinitum, very cheaply!

Perfect Pearls are an incredibly versatile medium. You can get an intense metallic or iridescent pearlised finish when they are applied in concentrated form with water, a softer look when applied dry with a soft brush onto stamped or hand-drawn images in Versamark and fixed by spritzing with water, or a subtle, pearlised effect by applying in spray form. They are something I would not be without in my arsenal, and I am delighted that I now have a much more comprehensive collection. I am particularly thrilled with those with dichroic properties.

I bought two of these palettes, and eventually I am going to make a similar palette of my alcohol inks – another idea I got from Christie. When creating the labels for the Perfect Pearls palette, I also saved a blank version of the template, so that I can insert the names of the different colours of alcohol ink. Watch this space!

 

P.S. Remember the other day that I posted about how I lost my Tim Holtz Design Ruler, and bought another (longer) ruler to replace it? Well, as per my prediction, my original one has turned up today! Typical… I found it lurking in my for-sale box of mixed media mirrors. Duh. Oh well, s’pose you can never have enough rulers…

Village Craft Fair

Last Saturday there was a craft fair in our village church to celebrate the creativity of the local people and as a local fund-raiser. I was offered a table and readily agreed, and offered to do demonstrations throughout the day.

Some of the work on display was of a very high standard; for instance, the lady who had the table next to mine had only been painting for about a year, and was producing work such as this:

There was also someone who was exhibiting a wide range of items including miniature embroidered rugs for dolls’ houses, taken from original rug designs:

seen here with some of her exquisite silver spoons. She also worked with enamel on copper, and made silver and bead jewellery. I was particularly taken with her marine life jewellery.

Further acrylic paintings:

This artist also created fairies from hand-made felt, which you can see on the display on the left of her table.

A great display of beautiful quilts.

There are more photos of the show in my Photobucket album.

Here I am at my table, ready to start.

This is my display board. I am so grateful to my hubby for finding some pegboard panels for me – this turned out to be ideal for hanging my mirrors and prints, and it took the rest really well with Blue Tack.

As you can see, I tried to display as much variety as I could – my mixed media mirrors (for further details, click on “Mirrors” in the RH sidebar of my blog – there are several posts), ATCs (likewise), pages from my ongoing mixed media Fine Art Album project, some experimental pieces, small paintings, and prints of my zentangle art – I printed these on semi-gloss photographic paper and am very pleased with the quality, and the intensity of the colour.

As I worked on my demo pieces, lots of people came up to watch and to chat, and ask me about my work. On the far left of my table, beside the zentangle print, are the cards and coasters. As well as offering these black and white zentangle cards for sale, I also managed to make up nearly 2 dozen coloured ones. I shall be doing a separate post about these in due course.

Of all that I had on offer, I only managed to sell nine cards, unfortunately, but at least my work got some exposure, and I had great fun being creative all day, so it was worth it!

Now for some photos of the work I did during the day. Most of these were small in size so that I could demonstrate several different techniques, and as usual I worked on ATC-sized card much of the time, as any successful samples can then be used for actual ATCs, and anything not successful won’t break the bank because hardly anything has been used!

I started with a plain white ATC which I stamped with versamark, and heat-embossed with clear embossing powder. I then inked this with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, using my Inkylicious Ink Dusters, and finished it off with a bit more distressing round the edges with Vintage Photo DI. The stamp was Calligraphic Mat #4 from The Artistic Stamper. The embossing acts as a resist, showing the white card beneath the ink. On the second sample, I inked it first using Weathered Wood DI, then embossed with clear embossing powder, and inked again, this time with Bundled Sage, and finally a touch of Vintage Photo around the edges to distress it. This resulted in the resist showing the initial inking colour, in this case blue. This stamp is the Music background stamp, again from The Artistic Stamper.

You can see how through many layers of stamping and inking, many different and interesting effects can be created.

The next thing I demonstrated was rubbing the ink pad on my non-stick craft sheet, spritzing it with water and smooshing the card in this ink. For the first sample, I used a mixture of Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo DIs. The quality of the card wasn’t that good for this technique, but I didn’t mind in the end that the initial smooshing came out quite blotchy; with the added stamping and extra ink, it just added to the general grunginess of the effect. To get a smoother effect, watercolour paper would be better as it stands up well to a soaking.

I stamped with gold embossing powder onto the background of the first piece, and in the second, used the stamp as a resist, as before. The stamp in the first sample is a flower head stamp from The Stamp Barn, and that in the second is from the Tim Holtz Ultimate Grunge Collection by Stampers Anonymous. This sample was first inked all over with Spiced Marmalade DI, stamped with clear embossing powder and then smooshed into Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo. To finish each of these samples, I spritzed them with a DIY glimmer mist made from Wild Honey Distress Re-inker, water and Perfect Pearls (Perfect Pearl colour), which has given an iridescent finish, and some nice blotches of a more intense effect.

The next sample was somewhat similar, but smooshed, stamped and inked repeatedly, building up the layers until I got the effect I wanted. In this case I used the Personal Impressions Pebbles background stamp with Versamark and clear embossing powder, and the Crafty Individuals large swirl stamp, also with Versamark and clear embossing powder, and finally with gold. This one was then sprinkled with water and blotted with some kitchen paper.

I did a quickie demo showing the effect of sanding Core’dinations paper – I had prepared a piece of Whitewash Core’dinations at home, embossing it with the Tim Holtz Texture Fades embossing folder “Cracked.” After sanding, I inked it with Dusty Concord DI, showing how the ink is intensified by the roughness of the sanded surface. To finish this one off, I rubbed on a little Treasure Gold in the central part, but it doesn’t show up too well on the photo.

I did a few examples with one of the stamps from the Stamp Attack JoZart Design fans collection, using Versamark onto black card and then adding dry Perfect Pearls in various colours with a soft brush. Once I had brushed off the excess I spritzed them lightly with water to activate the binding agent in the mica powder. These will be cut out and used as small tags, with the addition of some ribbon and a bit of bling.

My final sample was done with acrylics and stencils. I had intended to do several of these, but time was marching on, and I had other things to do as well.

For this, I laid my Increasing Circles stencil onto some heavy watercolour paper and painted on some gesso with a foam brush. After drying this with my heat gun, I proceeded to paint the surface roughly with alizarin crimson acrylic paint, placed the stencil back and rubbed with a baby wipe. This removed quite a bit of the paint from the gesso which acted as a resist, giving some interesting overlapping partial circles. I repeated the process with some ultramarine blue, and then stamped with scraps of extra large and extra small bubble wrap, using gesso. The effect was altogether too bright at this stage, so I made my favourite dulling-down acrylic glaze from a touch of Payne’s grey acrylic paint mixed with acrylic polymer, and after drying this, stamped with archival black ink using the ink-spatter stamp from the Tim Holtz Ultimate Grunge collection from Stampers Anonymous, and finally stamped with copper metallic acrylic paint using the circles stamp from the Bitty Grunge collection also from Stampers Anonymous. As always, using gesso and acrylics, I had to try and remember to clean the stencil, brushes and stamps immediately or it dries on very quickly and becomes impossible to remove. This is a bit of a bore, especially when one is on a creative roll and is desperate to get on to the next stage! (How nice it would be to have a flunky to do it for me, like the artists of old, who had apprentices to grind their paint for them!!)

This is a technique that you can just go on adding to, layer by layer, colour by colour, shape by shape, whatever you want, until you like it! The possibilities are endless. Here’s a detail shot.

I really like how the texture of the watercolour paper works with this background.

My second demonstration was making some paper flowers with Penny Duncan’s rose design cut file, somewhat adapted to give a more frilly edge to the petals. I deliberately made these quite large so that people could see what was going on. Here are the materials I used.

The pieces were drawn in Inkscape and cut out using Sheba, my Black Cat Cougar cutting machine. Distress Stains are the best method of colouring the petals and leaves, in my opinion. They are easy to apply, and you can build up the layers of colour to the intensity you desire. Once coloured and dried with the heat gun, each petal and leaf is hand-embossed onto a piece of fun foam, and then assembled using the hot glue gun. I ran a nib across the surface of a distress ink pad and drew the veins on the leaves. Here is the final result.

My final demo was intended to be zentangle drawing, and although I did do a bit, it was not enough to photograph – I will upload the finished drawing when I have done it. By the time I got started on that, the numbers of visitors to the show had thinned out considerably, and then people started clearing up, so I had to call it a day, as it took a very long time taking down my display and packing it all up ready to take home.