Spotlight Artist - Branka - Dylusions Paints

Hello! It's Branka here and I am pleased to be presenting the spotlight post this month, which is about playing with Dylusions paints. You may already know how devoted I am to these awesome paints. After reading this post you'll find out why. Dylusions came out with a line of twelve paints designed to match their ink sprays.

Here is the list of colors: Black Marble, White Linen, Bubblegum Pink, Postbox Red, Squeezed Orange, Lemon Zest, Fresh Lime, Cut Grass, Vibrant Turquoise, London Blue, Crushed Grape and Melted Chocolate. They come in jars and they are very liquid so be careful when you open the jar. The paint cleans up easily with warm water and soap. I love to apply them using my fingers and my brush.

These vibrant paints are easily blendable and they are translucent which I love. Not too thin and not too tick, this paint is just perfect for art journaling and mixed media creations. If you want to achieve a less translucent look, you can apply more layers of the desired color. Since they are designed mostly for art journaling these are fast drying paints and they are permanent when dry so you have to bear that in mind when blending them. 

I used 'finger' technique to create the background on this card:

If you want to achieve more smooth look you can use your baby wipe to apply these paints and to blend them. I like to use Dylusions paints directly on my art journal pages or manila tags without gesso. These paints can be diluted with water as any other acrylic paint. It's a great way to create beautifully blended backgrounds using as many colors as you want and creating as many layers as you desire. 

Here's the example of an art journal page with baby wipe blended background:

The other way you can apply these paints is using the Tim Holtz mini blending tool. You can apply the paint randomly or you can use Dyan Reaveley's block technique like here:

Tip: in creating these blocks use the paint from the lid of your jar because in that way you can more control how much paint you take. I always take a very small amount of paint and testing it on my craft sheet to be sure that it's not too much. 

After creating your blocks you can play with your stencils. Small amount of paint, mini blending tool and your stencils - that's all you need to create a vibrant and wonderful background.

I like to add borders using my stencils and mini blending tool to achieve more finished look. 

You can doodle since this paint accepts all types of writing inks. One more fantastic thing - the pages won't stick together after you use Dylusions paints. Here's the example:

If you rather like to achieve a kind of effect for your background as on the picture below.

Then you can use your brayer and a palette knife. Pick a small amount of paint with your palette knife and place it on your craft sheet. Use your brayer on the paint and randomly roll on your paper or art journal page. Play with different color combinations and because of these fast drying paints you will be able to quickly add many layers. How fun is that?

This is how this technique works on a black surface:

Tip: You don't want to waste your paint so you can use your palette knife and draw or doodle on the rest of your paint after brayering and press a tag or an art journal page onto it. Cool, isn't it? To achieve the same result you can also use Dylusions paints with your gelli plate. The trick is to always use a very small amount of paint. You can always add more paint if you want to.

You want to create a Bokeh effect background like I did here?

Just clean your mini blending tools in your art journal. I always try to leave my blending tools as clean as possible after using them with Dylusions paints. To do that I am just creating dots in my art journal. To achieve a Bokeh effect you can use your mini blending tool with White Linen Dylusions paint and create white dots randomly over the dotted page.

I hope this post has inspired you to play with these awesome paints, to experiment with them in creating something new, fun and beautiful! 

There is still time to join the fun for Sara's 31 Days Of Halloween at Anything But Cute! 

You have until the 4th of November to play - and you'll find all the challenge details as well as lots of inspiration from the brilliant Anything But Cute design team by clicking on the challenge link.

Happy crafting!

Branka x