Butterfly Tile - one layer faux encaustic

I have been really enjoying my faux encaustic technique and using it on different projects and in slightly different ways. If you didn't see my post a week ago Friday with a sea/fish themed media board, you can find it here.
The main constituent and product for creating this milky, textured finish is the DecoArt clear modeling paste. The steps on this tile gives a really simple, easy way to use it plus I had a fab playtime experimenting with different types of 'tissue' paper.

Greyboard sealed with a layer of gesso applied with a palette knife kept flat to the surface.

When dry second generation crackle stamp using watering can.

Spritz substrate blend in colours , spritz again, drip and let them move around and dry. Repeat until you are happy with the colour layers.

I went on to play with substrates for stamping on. Each image was stamped in black archival ink and I painted the colours on the reverse using DecoArt fluid media acrylics - See the topside below in #1.

1. American deli  paper - a good strong substrate for stamping in archival ink with no bleed through and great for painting on too, it took the watery paint well and remained a tough substrate.

2. Tim Holtz collage paper - this is more like the ordinary tissue paper. The black archival ink bled right the way through it leaving an imprinted image on my craft mat. It buckled when I painted it but I thought that added to the distress look.

3. Colourcraft abaca tissue paper is apparently like teabag paper and it does have that fabric feel to it. The ink didn't bleed but it didn't give such a crisp dark image either and watery paint was absorbed by the fabric like material very quickly and bled through onto the craft mat. It also bled over the image making it harder to see the design, however it performed differently using neat paint where it just sat in the space painted and left the image outline untouched on the other side.

I came back to the tile and created a few steps to get a composition and design I was happy with. 

Stamp with a small text image using black archival ink. 

Cut out the butterfly printed and painted on the deli paper and adhere it slightly to one side of the substrate. 

Find some words stamped, bought or computer generated (my preference), ink the edges and also glue down. Give them a light coat of decoupage glue to seal them.

Sand and distress the edges of the board blending in brown distress ink on the edges and on the sides of the tile. Spritz the edges with water to further distress the ink and heat dry.

Splatter a little watered down brown distress ink.

Now cover the board completely with the clear modeling paste and leave it overnight to dry. (See my original DecoArt post for this technique here and an under the sea media board here).

This photo shows the difference between the tile without the modeling paste and with. You will see that the distress ink moved because it reacts with water so the distressed edges changed and the splatters disappeared but I still love the effects it created. I'll just remember to splatter with paint next time lol.

You'll be seeing a few more of these tiles and similar technique layers over the next few weeks/months. Some of them, including this one, are being made into handbound sketch books / journals / notebooks

Hope you like this technique and please let me know if you try it and tell me where I can go see it.

See you again soon.

hugs Brenda xxx