Revisiting old techniques - Scraped Gesso Layer

I've devised a number of techniques and layer combinations using acrylic paints over the years and I am returning to them for inspiration and to document them on media boards as a resource.

This one - Scraped Geso Layer - I taught at Ministry of Mixology in April 2019.

Process steps

1. Seal substrate with a layer of gesso.

2. Tear and add some tissue tape.

3. Dip in watery colour/s and dry.

4. Stamp text and/or numbers using black archival ink.

5. Scrape gesso randomly and lightly over the surface using a palette knife keeping it flat.

6. Splatter using leftover watery paint.

7. Create a dark frame firstly dabbling and spritzing some watery burnt umber mixed with quinacridone gold - dry.

8. Mix neat quinacridone gold with paynes grey and slide the brush around the very edge and dry.

xxx

Revisiting old techniques - Distressed Gesso Layer

I've devised a number of techniques and layer combinations using acrylic paints over the years and I am returning to them for inspiration and to document them on media boards as a resource.

You will find them added to my Tutorials and step x steps page found on my sidebar.

This one - Distressed Gesso Layer - I taught at Ministry of Mixology in April 2019.

Process steps

1. Paint the substrate with any colour acrylic or chalk paint and before it is totally dry rub over it with a dry kitchen towel, this dries it quickly so you don't need a heat gun. I used Andy's Grey Haze

2. Take some gesso and a palette knife. Hold the palette knife horizontally flat over the substrate and gently drag the gesso over the surface. Don’t push down too hard. 

3. Repeat several times turning the substrate round in different directions to get an even random coverage and dry. Once dry you could add another layer of on top if you wanted more texture. 

4. Stamp some text over the top using archival ink and make sure it is dry before repeating step 2 again. but only using a very little gesso. This distresses and cuts up the text and pushes it into the background.

5. Dabble some watery prussian blue over the surface spritz with more water to move it about and hold up the substrate to let it drip then lay down again and just give it a little time for the watery colour to settle in the channels and dips before heat drying it,

6. Repeat with a little more watery wash but adding more blue to make it a deeper colour.

7. Finish by adding some splatters using the last of that deeper watery wash.

You can leave the 'clean' look or 'frame' the edges like I have on the Scraped Gesso Layer 

(see tutorials list on sidebar).

I also splattered some silver over the background and onto some grey haze painted stars to finish the board. 

Observations Gather Moments - Media Tile

Inspired by Sid Dickens

Another media tile.

Process Steps.

1. Seal the board with tinting bse.

2. Use the black side of some blending foam and add some gesso to a texture stamp, press it hard onto the surface of the tile.

3. Paint some washes of paynes grey, medium grey, transparent red iron oxide (TRIO) and white.

4. Brayer a thin coating of raw umber over the surface until happy with it.

5. Brayer raw umber and TRIO, using only the edge of the brayer, around the edges.

6. Sand the edges and dip in watery raw umber before finger rubbing neat quin gold or TRIO and paynes grey around to match the colours on the front.

7. Use paper covered wire (from floristry departments) and finger paint above colours over it.

8. Take metal word band and alter with paynes grey, TRIO and titan buff.

9. Find a metal insect and also alter like the word band.

10 Assemble adding some transfer/rubon words.

11. Frame it.

xxx

Supplies from DecoArt

White Tinting Base

Media Fluid Acrylics - Paynes Grey, Medium Grey, Transparent Red Iron oxide, Titanium White, Raw Umber, Titan Buff.

Blending media acrylic paints - DecoArt Creative Team

This is a DecoArt Media Tea Encore post
I was working on a tag earlier in the year and wanted to create a soft vintage look with my media acrylic paints. I had covered the greyboard tag with a coat of gesso using a palette knife when an idea came to me - let's try using a distress ink blending tool!

I made up the tag and was so pleased with the results but creating in the moment I hadn't written down any explanation of what I had done nor what I had used but here's what the background looked like.

So I started out experimenting with some card tags for this post. The tags on the left were not primed at all and the tags on the right were given a thin coat of gesso using a palette knife.

These were a mixture of both opaque and semi translucent paints - Titan Buff O, Cerulean Blue ST, Green Gold ST and Yellow Oxide ST although I mixed some Titan Buff with the 3 semi translucent colours which made them more cloudier. I used the rectangular blending tool and foam, taking a small amount of each colour and blending from my craft mat onto the tag, just like you do with distress inks.

These were all translucent colours - Hansa Yellow Light, Cobalt Teal Hue, Phthalo Green/Blue and Cobalt Blue.

In this neutral palette were all opaques - Burnt Umber, Dark Grey V3, Medium Grey V6 and Titan Buff.

What I realised was that I used far too much paint on the blender foam, they moved around a lot and they were easy to use. What I also noticed was that  blending onto a gesso surface was much smoother and created more translucent colours. Mmmmm how could I improve on that?

So what else do we know about acrylic paints? They dry quickly, they are traditionally used by painters using brushes and these artists use sweeping strokes of colours to blend them together. They can be mixed with glazing medium to create more transparent layers which doesn't affect their drying time. Also by experimenting with the blending tool and blending foam I found the pads hold the paint well, give good coverage and are washable so they can be used again.

I cut some card to fit one of my journals and scraped a gesso layer over with a palette knife and left to dry. Gesso has a tooth to it to allow the paint to stick to it so I buffed the first piece with a soft cloth, it certainly gave it a bit more of a satin feel. I also swapped from the larger rectangular tool to the small circular tool and foam. I love the neutral palette so I chose Titan Buff, Medium Grey Value 6, Burnt Umber and Raw Umber.

The card on the left has two coats of titan buff and was rubbed with a soft cloth after each layer had dried. The card on the right has two coats of titan buff mixed 50:50 with glazing medium. When added to paint it gives more transparent layering effects and this just glided on with the foam pad and gives a much softer finish.

For the next layer I chose medium grey value 6. Immediately you can see how thicker the paint stays on the surface even with only one coat as the left hand side is. You need more paint on the foam for it to stick. Whereas the mix of paint and glazing medium on the right hand side has two coats and is still so soft and translucent and you need very little on the foam pad. I can see benefits for using both of these techniques.

For the third colour I chose burnt umber and repeated step two above but I forgot to rub the right hand card with a soft cloth between the layers and the paint beneath gave more tooth for the second coat to hold onto giving a deeper tone.

I finished with Raw Umber applying it mostly round the edges to frame each background. Again I chose not to rub the right hand card between the two layers of paint but I did rub both of them before I took each photo. On the right hand card I also rubbed my finger round the edges when applying the wet paint to blend it to an even softer finish.

So you see the effects I got from raw card, gesso, media paint and glazing medium. You can see some of the card has more texture than others from the gesso. I actually love all the effects.

To summarise there are four different outcomes and effects.
1. Blended acrylics on raw card.
2. Blended acrylics on gesso covered card.
3. Blended acrylics on gessoed card with buffing between layers.
4. Blended acrylics mixed with glazing medium and buffed between layers.

Have fun experimenting with other colours and if you want to see the original tag that started this all off you can find it here.

Here is a project made with one of the above samples. I introduced colour through the stamping and collage elements. You can see I stamped on the tag and painted in some of the swirls on the border.

Top Tip - the foam pads hold onto the paint really well so rub them off on dry paper kitchen towel or another dry cloth before moving on to the next colour.

Spray paints or inks - Tando Creative

I've made a tag for this theme today at Tando Creative.

I used a media board painted with gesso and when dry scraped white modeling paste through a stencil.

These pieces I took from a bits box which were already painted - leftovers from previous projects.

I also grabbed these from another bits box of Tando leftovers to add to the design. As you can see these were not painted or sealed so I started by gluing these to the media board ...

.... and when dry I gave it all a coat of gesso.

Next I sprayed some water based and DecoArt white mister over the surface, dried it and repeated again to give me my base  colours ...

.... and then dribbled some watery media acrylic paints, ....

.... sanded and inked the edges of the board and finished with some splatters of titanium white.

Because the sprays I used were water based they created some lovely mottled effects together when I spritzed them and when I repeated the layer. 

xxx

Supplies from Tando Creative

Media board, chipboards.

Andy Skinner stamps and stencils

DecoArt Media gesso, misters

Stencil covers for Tando Creative

When Di at Tando Creative designed and cut some new stencils for Andy Skinner she also cut a stencil cover for them so they could be kept together as a set. I did a simple background and made the covers fairly flat so they could sit in my drawer.

Process steps
1. Take tag and give it a random coat of white gesso.
2. Paint cerulean blue acrylic paint mixed with a little water over the whole tag and dab with some kitchen paper to remove some of it from the gesso. It will of course soak straight into any greyboard that is left exposed.
3. Use a small palette knife and scrape some white gesso lightly and randomly over the surface keeping the flat of the palette knife level with the tag. Dry.

 4. Seal with a coat of decou-page.

5.  Mix a little prussian blue hue 50:50 with glazing medium and paint over the tag and gently rub back with dry kitchen roll and a babywipe keeping the dark blue to the edges.

 6. Mix a little quinacridone gold with water, dribble on one place spritz with water and move around and dab some off with dry kitchen paper before drying. Repeat in another couple of random places.

7. Mix a little paynes grey with water and dribble around the edges, spritz with water and dry. I worked on about a 2 inch spread at a time.
8. Use the two different stencils - similar to American car number plates and with a palette knife spread black modeling paste through them and leave them to dry naturally.

9. For the inside covers, use a palette knife to spread a smooth coat of everlasting chalky finish paint over the greyboard, give them a watery wash all over of cerulean blue and dry. Mix a watery wash of prussian blue hue and dabble, spritz and dry around the edges. Heat dry and finish with some stamping and some colouring and a light quinacridone wash to tie it all together..

10. Seal both the insides and outsides of the overs with a coat of ultra matte varnish. 

These are great for altering and are useful to use to cover the stencils. You pick them out in an instant when they are with other stencils in a drawer.

Thanks for stopping by and ......

xxx

Supplies 
Tando stencils and stencil covers. 

DecoArt media fluid acrylics - cerulean blue, prussian blue hue, quinacridone gold 

DecoArt mediums - white gesso, black modeling paste, ultra matte varnish, decou-page sealer

Tag Friday

It's the fifth Friday in May and we have a Tag Friday post over at A Vintage Journey today showcasing lots of wonderful inspiration tags, so worth taking a look.

Process steps

Layer of gesso using a palette knife.

Dips and drips of sap green and cerulean blue drying between each layer.

Blend over hickory smoke and gathered twigs and splatter with water - dry off water with a piece of kitchen towel.

Spritz lightly with water and heat dry.

Stencil with coffee archival ink.

Stamp the Imperial Rover bicycle with hydrangea, coffee and black archival inks and leave to dry. (I used a stamp platform).

Mask the words and bicycle and stamp over some gears and text from the Tech Trauma set using watering can archival ink.

Add the vintage photo and mini collage with Secret Journey stamped and cut from the Word Up set.

There we have a stamped and stencilled collage of images on a painty/inky distressed background.
I wonder who the cyclist is and where he has been journeying to?

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you get a minute to go walkthrough the amazing line up of fabulous tags over at AVJ, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Enjoy your weekend.

Supplies from Country View Crafts

DecoArt Media - Fluid Acrylic Paints - burnt umber, cerulean blue, sap green, titan buff.

DecoArt Media - White Gesso

Stamps - Andy Skinner - Imperial Rover, Tech Trauma, Word Up

Stencil - Andy Skinner - Inspire

Vintage Photo - Tim Holtz - Vintage Photo Strips