Monday 7 May 2018

Using an embossing folder mixed media style


I'm up on the Tando Creative blog today and this week the theme is 'embossing folders'.
I keep some offcuts of embossed card and thought I would experiment  with creating some random textures on a media board. Andy got me onto this when he did something similar on a project many years ago but I've taken it and changed it quite a lot.


A great distressed background using combined with rusty elements looks fab. I hope you can pop over to see the process steps.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx


Updated from the Tando Blog

I thought I would create a textured media board for embossing folder week and I liked it so much I decided it would become my 'Make and Take' project at Ministry of Mixology last month. (I was well ahead of myself with projects as I had a holiday coming up and wanted to get loads of projects scheduled well before hand).


I adhered a few pieces of torn/cut left over embossed card randomly onto a media board using matte medium and left it to dry between wax paper under a heavy box.


Don't worry about gluing the pieces over the edges, you can remove these when it's perfectly dry.



Next I scraped over some texture sand paste and heat dried it.


Paint a coat of white gesso to give it some tooth for the next layers and then spend quite some time spritzing water, dipping media acrylic paints into it, letting it move around a little and drying it. I repeated this step lots and lots of times using raw umber, quinacridone gold, burnt sienna and carbon black.


I wanted to highlight the textures a little more so I took a palette knife and white gesso and lightly scraped it over keeping the blade flat to the surface.


The White gesso is very stark so mix a dirty watery wash of paynes grey and quin gold and paint over the whole surface, dry it and seal with a varnish - I used soft touch.


I took some elements I had already rusted and a word (I have no idea why I chose the word 'waiting' although there is something special we are waiting for later in the year - that's my unconscious mind taking over perhaps!) and I put it together to finish it off. I'm really happy with this.


The textures from the embossed card are random and give a completely distressed look to the background.