The Summer of Color, Week 2

I decided to do another piece using Distress Paints and a texture medium for week 2 of SOC. This was more of an experiment than the piece I did last week. I use light molding paste frequently, although I had never used it with the Distress Paints before. But this week I used Golden Clear Granular Gel which I had only used once before with regular acrylic paints. I wasn't sure what would happen. Things didn't go exactly as I hoped.

I don't have all the Distress Paint colors. I used Picked Raspberry for one of the pinks and Spiced Marmalade for the orange. I needed another pink. After giving it some thought, I decided to tint some gesso with a few drops of Golden Primary Magenta to make a pale pink.

I painted the paper with the pink gesso and let it dry. Then I applied the Clear Granular Gel through a stencil. I wasn't sure that would work, but it did better than I expected. This texture medium is a soft, glossy gel with bits of hard plastic (translucent acrylic) bits in it. I left the page to dry thoroughly overnight.

In my previous work with Distress Paints, I discovered that enough water will wash the paints right off the gesso to expose white areas. The paint can't soak in like it does on untreated paper. My idea was that I could expose the pale pink by washing off the other paints in places.

Last week I applied Distress Paint over the light molding paste. But I put the paints around the granular gel to allow the paints to drip through the stenciled areas.

It started out well. The paint was moving down through the gel medium and piling up on the acrylic bits when they were in the way. But this is where my plan went astray. I realized that the water was washing away some bits of acrylic. There was no real pressure involved in my spraying, but some of the bits were not embedded in enough gel to hold them.

This section in the top left of the paper is one of the few places where you can see the original pale pink. I stopped applying water before I washed away all my acrylic bits. You can see some of the bare spots where only the gel medium remains.

Farther down the page, you can actually see and feel some of the bits that washed away. 

And the finished page:

Supplies used: 12 in. X 9 in., 140lb. Strathmore 400 series Mixed Media Paper, white gesso, Golden Primary Magenta Fluid Acrylic, Golden Clear Granular Gel, the "Ancent Ruins" stencil from Joggles (a small part was masked off), the Distress Paints (Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade), and a lot of water.

I am not 100% happy about the finished product, but I consider it a learning experience. The bare spots don't look that great, but the places where the bits ended up have a gritty look I like. I need to play around with the granular gel. Maybe pressing it down with a wide palette knife before removing the stencil will help.

In case you are interested, I shared a Distress Paint page in my daily journal in Friday's post. I explained how I protect other pages from being damaged by leaks.

Distress Paint in My Daily Journal

For the first week of the Summer of Color 2015, I used Distress Paints on a single piece of paper. That is probably the best way to do this technique because it is so messy. It takes a lot of paint and a lot of water.

Should you try this in your art journal? Maybe, after you have practiced on single sheets and see how messy this really is. (Oh, but so much fun!!!!) Will it leak to other pages? Yes. Will it get on the underpaper and get on your cover? Yes, probably. If you have a wire-bound journal, absolutely not, unless you want the Distress Paint on every page in your journal. It will leak through those holes in a heartbeat.

Have I every used the Distress Paints in my journal? Yes, occasionally. It leaked every time. But I have found some ways to make it less messy and less destructive to my finished work.

Below is a journal page I did with Distress Paints about a month ago.

You probably noticed that when I rotated the paper to make the drips, I tried not to let the drips go all the way to the edge. It didn't always work because they move quickly, but for the most part, I succeeded. There were some other things I did to keep this leaky project from messing up pages I had already completed.

The first thing is my journal, a Strathmore Hardback 500 Series Mixed Media Art Journal. The Strathmore Mixed Media products have been my go-to papers for several years now because they stand up well to the watery media I love to use. I rarely use gesso. Color never soaks through, including Dylusions Ink Sprays. The only other type of paper that works well with this much water is watercolor paper.

(Michaels here in the US carry some of the Strathmore Mixed Media papers.)

The hardbound journal is made of stitched signatures. The usual place were I get a leak is around the outside edges because I like my paint to go all the way to the edge. The other place where things sometimes leak is the middle page of the signature. Watery liquids will leak through the stitching holes, so I save them for another page.

But the Distress Paints are so messy that I go over to the next signature from where I am working. In that signature I choose the last page. 

The middle page has the stitching holes and thread. The page below that also has easier access to the holes. By the third page, the holes are less available. The pink lines show where I apply the paint. Notice that some of the paint leaks under the fold of the signature. But because paint doesn't soak through the Strathmore paper, the pages in the other signatures are protected.

I place newsprint between my working pages and the next page on each side. I have the Distress Paints poured out into recycled jar lids because I will be using a 1 inch brush for each color. You have to get the paint onto the page quickly so it will not dry out before you can spray water on it.

I first paint across the center of the spread with a background color, only going about an inch onto the left page. I do this thinly which means it is going to dry quickly, but that is okay. I won't be spraying water there. I am just trying to get rid of the white of the paper. I also continue this around the outside edge of the right side of the spread since I will try not to run my dripping paint over the edge.

Next I quickly apply the colors of Distress that I want to activate with water. Then I spray water heavily, avoiding the area near the center of the spread. I rotate the page in all directions getting the paint moving horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Because I am working in the journal, I watch for drips that are getting close to the edge and rotate to send them another way. I might add additional paint and/or water, but not as much as I would if I were working on a single page.

After the Distress Paint is completely dry, I add some color to the rest of the left page. I make any notes regarding the art work, but I will not do daily journaling until I reach this spread as I go through my journal chronologically. I am just now getting to the daily journaling on this spread where the art was finished weeks ago.

As I worked my way into the signature where I used the Distress Paints, I found the leaks. A bit of gesso covers up the mess.

On the page I showed you above, Mustard Seed and Mermaid Lagoon were the colors used. They formed the green as they mixed. Later, while the paint was still wet, I used a pipette to drop in some Distress Black Soot and PIcket Fence (white). I often do this to add an accent color. If the Distress Paint is still wet, the drops will activate and spread. If the paint has already dried, the drops look like any paint spatter you might add to a project.

After I finished, I left my journal open on my art table. When I came back a bit later, a lot of the paint had moved to the right side of the paper. There was just a small curve to the paper, but that and gravity were enough. A lot of the paint was still wet and would be for some time since it was so thick there. I decided to see if I could still move it. It moved very slowly, but did get there. You can see how far it moved by the wash of color that was left behind.

If you work with Distress Paints on a large surface, I would enjoy seeing your results and learning about your process. I have never come across anyone else who does this.

The Summer of Color, Week 1

Since I am now retired, I have time to become active in an online activity or two. I am a long time fan of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, making her Art Journal Every Day a natural choice. 

Challenges with weekly themes don't appeal to me because as soon as someone gives me a theme, a topic, or a quote, my mind usually goes blank. But I love color, the brighter the better, for my clothes, my surroundings, and my art. So I am glad that I found The Summer of Color 2015 organized by Kristin Van Valkenburgh.

This year the participants will be given a generic color palette of 2 of one color plus 1 of another. We each get to choose the specific colors. This week it is 1 blue + 1 blue + 1 green. I might choose olive green and someone else could choose emerald green. What a participant creates with the colors is up to her/him. It doesn't even have to be a journal page.

I thought this would be easy, but I was stuck. I was looking back through my art journal for ideas when I saw a page I did with Distress Paints. Also on my table I saw a mostly empty jar of light molding paste which I needed to use up before it dried out completely. Bingo!

I used a piece of 12 in. X 9 in., 140lb. Strathmore 400 series Mixed Media Paper, Golden Light Molding Paste, the "Mesmerized" stencil from Color Box, the Distress Paints, and a lot of water. This is the result:

 I used the new Mermaid Lagoon, a gorgeous blue, Mowed Lawn, and a greenish blue I made by mixing the two. The lighter areas were created by the water leaving behind a wash of color on the paper.

 This is a messy technique, but so much fun. You never know exactly what the outcome will be.

Wet on Wet

Experimenting with new techniques and/or products is part of the fun of art journaling. I am always on the lookout for new techniques to try out in my daily journal. In this piece I modified a technique I found in the May/June 2015 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine. The article is "Zen Owls: Painting with Ink and Water" by Tracy Verdugo.

The ink referred to in the article was acrylic artist ink. Having only a few colors of acrylic ink, I decided to try it with Dylusions Spray Inks. Instead of owls, I painted flowers.

I experiment directly on the journal page if the paper in the journal is appropriate. But sometimes I want to use a medium that works better on a special type of paper or do a technique that requires a lot of water. When that happens, I work on a separate piece of paper and glue the finished piece into my journal. I use my daily journal for taking notes on my experiments.

Supplies I used: 140 lb hot pressed watercolor paper, Dylusions Spray Inks, water, brushes, pens and paint markers for finishing touches, black Archival Ink around the outside edge

Water is applied in the shape of the object you want to paint. Then you add the ink to the wet area. I found I needed to do small areas at a time and let them dry before proceeding. Otherwise, I would have been smearing them as I worked. It did take a little practice. I was doing much better by the time I got to the leaves. I like the result and will be using this technique again.

The background on the journal page was done with acrylics. I recycled a large sheet of bubblewrap by using my brayer to apply white paint and pressing it onto the page.

Sometimes experiments work. Sometimes they don't. Either way, I have a lot of fun playing in the paints.

Just passing this on...

In case you like Dina Wakley's paints and missed this announcement from Ranger, there is now a mixing chart for making other colors from her paints. You can read about it and find the link to the PDF here. The reds, oranges, and yellows in the background of my journal page were made with Dina's ruby and lemon paints. I have been mixing them all along. Now I have names for the colors.

My First Blog Post

Hi, I'm Neena. I have been art journaling for a number of years, although I didn't know it was called that until a few years ago. My introverted self used writing, pasting, and a bit of doodling in a notebook as a way to find a bit of solitude. Since I discovered art blogs and videos, my journals have become more arty. I am actually starting to think of myself as an artist. Others may not be that generous, but I don't care. I am having fun and plan to have even more. One of my goals for using this great thing called retirement is to improve my art skills.

I work in several journals. The one I work in most often is my daily journal. I do something in it nearly every day. In the past, it was only for a few minutes on most days. Once I retired, I found myself spending more time working in it.

I use the left page of my daily journal spreads for making notes about techniques and supplies used as well as documenting what's happening in my life. For privacy reasons, I'll only be photographing the arty right sides of my daily journal spreads to share on the blog.

I've been experimenting with abstract art while learning more about using acrylic paints. On the page below, I used glazes to build up the colors of the geometric shapes. The black lines were made with pastel pencil. I did this back in March, including some journaling about winter.

The piece was definitely not finished, but I couldn't decide what to add. Recently I was flipping back through this almost finished journal to find pages that need a bit more work. Adding stenciled and stamped designs popped into my head as soon as I saw the page.

Two things that ended up creating the focal point were due to messes that had to be rescued. The circles on the diagonal strip started out as a stamped image, but something pasted on the next spread kept it from printing cleanly. I colored in the circles and then added some marks with acrylic markers. Just below that you see a black stenciled area over some pink. When I was painting, I dripped a blob of another color on the pink. I grabbed a baby wipe to remove it. It took some of the glaze as well, leaving the lighter pink area. That area really pops under the black design. Sometimes messing up is a good thing.

Supplies used: acrylic paints, Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (Satin), black pastel pencil, black Pitt Artist Pen, stencils, stamps, acrylic markers, colored pencils

A friend says this is not bad for a first post. I hope you think so, too, and will visit again.