Colourful Pages

Yes, really!

I promised myself this year I would experiment with more colour in my journals, especially colours I don't like, and here are the first two pages made during Snazzys AJ Sundays at the end of May & June.

 

Back in the dark ages, when I was a girl, I was very pale skinned with very blonde hair and my Mother used to dress me in red to 'cheer' me up.  Problem was add a bit of heat, or a bit of sun, or a bit of cold, or a bit of exercise never mind embarrassment and my skin could exhibit every shade of red going lol! 

 

Consequently, I loathe red, never wear it, rarely work with it, don't own anything red. What better colour to start with - once I had been shopping.

 

Postbox Red Dylusion's Ink Spray, Ranger's Distress Inks in Barn Door, Fired Brick & Festive Berries plus Tsukineko's Versafine in Crimson Red & Satin Red all found their way to my studio and onto this page - I did buy some Cherry Pie Ink Spray too as it looked pretty red on the label but on an empty white journal page it looked pink ;o( 

 

I was in need of sunglasses to cope with all the colour so added some Gessso stamping with Kaisercraft Background stamps, texture paste through a couple of Prima Stencils, Chequerboard & Crackle, (which turned red as I hadn't dried the Ink Spray, interesting effect tho') and Tissue Tape inked with some Vintage Photo Distress Ink to try and tone it down a bit - that went well then lol!

 

I think I quite like the page but I still loathe red!

 

The following month it took me all of two seconds to come up with a colour I dislike almost as much as red. That would be orange then, very closely followed by yellow - haven't worked out what it's for other than when a circle of it appears in the sky from time to time.

 

Set me thinking...

 

 

Dylusions Ink Sprays in Lemon Zest, Pure Sunshine and a touch of Sqeezed Orange with Scattered Straw & Mustard Seed Distress Inks, topped with Wild Honey Distress Paint scraped on thinly and it was certainly orange, extremely orange. I added some of last month's red Distress Inks to try and warm it up (I am becoming my Mother!) then consoled myself the beautiful Donna Downey stamps from Unity, I had finally treated myself to would hide most of the sins.

 

I then covered everything with a couple of thin coats of Gesso to create a sort of sunray effect and to try and calm things down, then stamped Hero Arts new Stamp your Story stamps in Archival Ink in Saffron, Distress Ink in Ripe Persimmon and Picket Fence Distress Paint. I then added the flowers and words with stamps from PSX (there's a blast from the past!) and MM in my favourite Versafine Onyx Black ink.

 

I like this page marginally better than the red one but am so grateful I told myself I need only use each colour once in my journal, what a relief!

 

Thanks for persevering with my inky exploits.

Back soon xx

 

Experiments with Distress Paints Part 2

Hello, back again as promised with a different technique with the scrummy new Distress Paints from Ranger.

Here's what I used on each sample ......

 

.....Distress Paints in Bundled Sage, Victorian Velvet, Antique Linen, Weathered Wood & Broken China, Treasure Gold in White Fire and a credit card style hotel room key.

 

I have just started (another) journal, this time a smaller A5 size so I can take it on holiday - no immediate plans but a girl can dream can't she! It has thinner paper than either of my current A4 journals so I was a bit worried about paint seeping through from one page to the next so I thought I'd try scraping the paint onto the page really thinly (with the hotel room card of course) to avoid this and two things happened.....

 

 

Firstly, the paint dried almost instantly and one of the features of DP is that once it's dry it is permanent, and secondly, the paint was so transluscent you could clearly see all the colours I used in the layers underneath. Oh my I liked that and found it was true on the texture paste bits through a Prima stencil too..

 

 

...and here's the finished journal pages

 

 

...with stamps from JOFY's Spring Collection from PaperArtsy stamped in Tsukineko's Versafine in Onyx Black and some detail picked out with an Inkessential's White Pen.

 

It set me thinking about what would happen if I added the paint slightly more thickly...

 

 

.....still transluscent but slightly less so.

 

 

I finished with texture paste again through a stencil from Prima, stamped with a fabulous image from Chocolate Baroque's new Punky Flowers plate and WOW's Platinum Detail Embossing Powder with a touch of Treasure Gold. Nice effect.

 

Finally my 'what if's' led me to applying the paint more thickly still but then it didn't dry so quickly and....

 

 

...I loved this effect.

 

Still some transparent bits showing off the layers below, but solidly opaque in other areas with the wetter layers scraped back off in parts so texture colour and layers. Heaven. I finished off with the same stamp, stencil etc as the earlier experiment and turned it into a really clean & simple card.

 

So, I learned Distress Paints .......

 

don't have to be grungy - you can keep all the layers pastel,

don't have to be opaque - you can scrape it on thinly and have transluscent layers,

don't have to be used with water - not a drop used here,

don't have to be applied with a brush - just add the paint directly to an old plastic card,

don't have to be dried between layers - semi dry doesn't mix to create mud and does give texture! 

 

That's all for now, be back Saturday with Part 3 of my Distress Paint Experiments - so many products to play with research, so little time.

 

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed xx 

 

 

 

 

 

Experiments in colour......

Hello there.

 

Those of you who know me well will recognise my addictions below - stamps (of course), black ink (preferably Tsukineko's Versafine in Onyx Black), backgrounds, 'nothing' stamps (not stamps of nothing that would be really silly, but stamps that are not of something in particular therefore versatile), really nice smooth white paper (ideal for stamping on), really fine detailed stamps, layers, alphabet/word stamps, very little colour and certainly no strong colours - other than black & white. 

You're getting the theme now lol!  

 

 

Even when I journal or scrapbook I find myself needing stamps, can't doodle, never hand write, never draw - can't, it's why I stamp, never use strong colours - other than black & white!

 

 The page above is very typical of the sort of journal page I enjoy creating, even though it does include some of my very messy handwriting.

 

Now, nothing wrong with creating things just because you enjoy the process, it's called a hobby! It's started me thinking though about why I find myself in the same groove. I have very little time to create so it's easy to reach for the 'go to' products because I know they will work for me, I will relax and be mostly pleased with what I make = good use of scarce time.

But is it the best use of my time?

 

Which brings me to........

 

 

my newest journal which I have decided will be all about my experiments in colour. I am going to make a real effort to use colour, especially those shades I am not so keen on, and hopefully learn something about the best use of my time along the way. Results to follow.....

 

What are your 'go to' products? what would you experiment with?

 

Do tell xx