Welcome to Technique Tuesday #5 and a versamark resist that didn't work lol, but pushing through on the technique I ended up with a result I really liked. I had recently seen this video from Claudine Hellmuth a little while ago and wanted to have a go at her technique using versamark watermark ink refill.
I followed the instructions and got the first layer completed - a painted layer of raw umber media acrylic to seal the card and give me a dark background on which to work.
Next, as Claudine instructed, I placed down a mask - she used a stencil - and used a blending tool and foam to apply a coat of the watermark ink .......
..... and then painted a watery wash of gesso over the top but the magic didn't happen. The watermark ink was supposed to act as a resist but for some reason it didn't work for me - perhaps I should try it again and use titanium white media paint. To try and salvage something I grabbed a piece of kitchen towel, laid it over and gently dabbed some of the gesso off and dried it leaving this very mottled effect. I actually quite like it as it was but the more I looked at it I could see some of the ghostly branches peeping through underneath. I wiped it over with the kitchen towel wondering if anything else would be revealed but it didn't, the gesso was well and truly dry and nothing budged.
Still the more I looked at it those ghostly branches were calling me and I wanted to see more of them so I took things a step further, laid the mask back over the tree image and used a blending tool and foam again but this time with the raw umber media acrylic on it ........
..... this time when I removed the mask the trees and their branches appeared all wintry white and where the gesso had been in the background and with the covering of raw umber over it, it still left a mottled looking appearance, just a darker one than before. Mmmm this looked really quite cool.
I knew immediately I wanted to make it into a journal page so out came the wonderful quotes stamps from the lovely Alison Bomber and I chose a lovely simple tree one and stamped it on some painted core'dinations paper. The ink and the painted paper didn't work too crisply together but in the end I quite liked the rather ghostly words that I had and decided to use it anyway.
Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you're not. Last week I threw several things in the bin that just didn't work for me but today I'm happy with the results.
Her's the graphic for today if you are pinning.
Have a great week.
hugs Brenda xxx
hugs Brenda xxx
