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.

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.