Spotlight Artist - Lisa - Brushos Techniques

Hello, everyone!! I hope you are having a wonderful week!! I'm going to share some techniques with you today using Brushos, a highly pigmented, incredibly versatile water color powder. Brushos can be used on paper, canvas and even wood and are completely non-toxic and non-hazardous. The results are never the same and can be vibrantly unpredictable...in a good way :)

To start, I punched holes in the bottles so I can easily sprinkle the powder without opening the jars each time. I used a Tim Holtz pick tool to punch the holes.

Technique #1) Brushos on Wet Paper

To get started, spritz paper with water. I used Strathmore Watercolor paper for all of these techniques.

Sprinkle as many colors of Brushos as you desire onto the paper. They react instantly with the water.

You can keep adding water and Brushos until your happy with the result.

Technique #2) Brushos on Dry Paper

Sprinkle Brushos directly onto paper.

Spritz with water and watch the colors blend!! You can either let it dry like this or...

...dab with a paper towel or baby wipe for softer, muted colors.

Technique #3) Fireworks Effect

This one I discovered completely by accident :) Spritz paper with water. Open the lid of one of the  jars and pinch a small amount of Brushos with your fingers.

Drop onto the wet paper. I love how the edges fan out, giving a beautiful exploding fireworks effect.

Technique #4) Starch on Dry Paper

For the next couple of techniques, we're going to use starch. I chose this brand with a lovely scent of mountain lavender...pretty colors, pretty smell :)

Sprinkle Brushos on dry paper and then spritz with starch.

Continue to add more Brushos and more starch to intensify the color.

Move the starch around to blend the colors.

You can pat some of the color with a paper towel or baby wipe for a nice ombre look.

Technique #5) Starch With Cling Wrap

Sprinkle Brushos on paper and the spritz with starch.

Keep adding Brushos and starch and move the starch around until you get a nice blend.

Crumple a piece of cling wrap larger than your paper and then unfold it. Pat it onto the wet starch. Let dry completely before you remove the wrap.

Once it dries, you get a nice depth of colors.

Here's another example of this technique with different colors.

And the finished result.

Technique #6) Sea Salt

You can get beautiful color and texture using sea salt.

I love this one...it looks like blue marble.

You never know what you're going to get...I love the color and texture of this one.

And one more using rainbow colors.

Technique #7) Embossing

For this one, I inked a Wendy Vecchi stamp with Versamark, then heat embossed it. I used clear embossing powder since I wanted the white paper to show through.

After embossing, sprinkle Brushos onto paper and spritz with water. You can see the circle pattern showing through. You can see it better in the next picture...

Technique #8) Bleach

To add more depth, stamp an image onto the paper (please ignore the face on my acrylic block...that happened the first time I used the Stampendous Beauty Face stamp :)

Fill a waterbrush with bleach. Paint inside the petals...the bleach will remove the color.

Here's another example using a flower stamp.

The bleach works on both lighter and darker colors.

And one more using a checkered floor stamp.

Technique #9) Using Stencils

There are several ways to use Brushos with stencils. For this one, I sprinkled Brushos onto my craft mat and then spritzed with water. Dip paintbrush into mixture (you don't want it too wet or it will bleed beneath the mask) and brush over stencil.

A pretty blue butterfly :)

Technique #10) Brushos, Stencils and Texture Paste

Cover stencil with texture past and then sprinkle Brushos over the top while the stencil is still in place.

Spritz with water and then remove stencil. I didn't show this step, but you can then turn the stencil over on another piece of watercolor paper for a beautiful background.

Technique #11 ) Coloring Texture Paste with Brushos

Combine Brushos with texture paste and stir with pallet knife until completely blended.

Spread blended mix over stencil. The color options are unlimited...you can make your own custom color of texture or crackle paste.

These are just a few techniques I've learned. I would love to hear about some of your techniques using Brushos in the comment section below. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Don't forget to join in our current challenge hosted by Niki, The Birds and The Bees. You have until July 4th to link up. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Lisa

Spotlight Artist - Niki is molding and sculpting with polymer clay

Hello lovelies! I do hope that today finds you all well and good. As some of you may know, I like to experiment with different products and learn new ways to use said products. Today I would like to share some different ways to use polymer clay with your mixed media designs. There are so many ways to incorporate oven bake clay or air dry clay into your designs. I am sharing polymer clay techniques that I find the most fun!

TOP 5 TIPS ABOUT POLYMER CLAY

1. Cornstarch is a great way to get moulds to release and also can help get out fingerprints left in your clay.

2. When using colored clay it will leave a lovely colored residue on your hands, an easy way to get this off is to use a hand sanitizer.

3. DO NOT use Sharpie's on your clay, Sharpie's are solvent based and over time will bleed and the dye will blur leaving your design a hot mess. 

4. Add acrylic paint to your clay to create any color you would like, although not as vibrant in color as clay that is already colored.

5.  An acrylic rolling pin, sculpting tools and a slicing blade are some essential tools when working with clay.

I don't really have a specific clay I use, basically any oven bake clay that is on sale is good enough for me but not all clay is created equal. The only clay that I have found I don't particularly like is DAS air dry clay. When shaping clay I like clay that will stick together, even when you have to add some extra clay, the DAS clay did not do that. It crumpled and the pieces did not stick together.

I prefer to use oven bake clay for most of my designs. Oven bake clay tends to not shrink and stays true to form whereas air dry clay WILL shrink and then you may be stuck with a piece that isn't exactly what you were going for.

One of the more easy ways to create with polymer clay is to just roll it out and make a flat piece then use your handy dandy stamps and stamp into it. Easy peasy and this adds wonderful depth and texture to a design. This technique is shown in the altered paper mache book photo below. The entire background panel is made from polymer clay that I stamped into. When you add your colors (in this case I used LSG sprays) it pools into the recesses of the stamped clay and adds nice contrast. I used oven bake clay for this design.

The blue "tiles" under the torn paper above the butterfly are air dry clay that I stamped into. I used these leftovers on this design because the tiles cracked as they were air drying and I couldn't use it for my intended project. That is how I learned about the difference between air dry and oven bake clay. 

Another way to use polymer clay is to sculpt little accessories for your design. For this idea I usually use white clay that I can paint any color I would like. I use acrylic paints on the clay. You can also paint parts of the sculpt you are doing, then bake it, and continue to add to your design after baking. The paint will stay where it should on your sculpt. The picture below shows some small little elements I added to my skeletons. The little top hat and the bow tie on the gentleman is made from clay. The necklace and bracelet on the lady skeleton is made from clay. There are also two pumpkins that are clay and the tombstones are made from clay.

Or you can go a bit bigger and create an entire model sculpt from clay. The wonderful thing about clay is you can keep changing your sculpt if you don't like the result that is happening. For my Jack Skellington (my first attempt at a full sculpt) I wasn't liking his head so I re-designed it about 3 times. Make a wire armature if you are going to do a full sculpt, it helps with the overall shape and provide nice support. I used oven bake clay for Jack and Zero. Another technique that you can achieve with clay is to use it in molds. I have 3 different molds on the Jack Skellington design. The clock is a mold, the frame around the tombstone and the pillars by the pumpkins are molds. For the molds I used air dry clay and would have to say that I was not happy with the results. In the future I will be using oven bake clay for my molds.

One of my absolute favorite designs included the paw print of my beloved German Shepherd, Raj. I created the design around her paw print that I had made when she was about 7 years old (I lost her to cancer in 2014). The vet clinic I worked at was wanting to give clients a memento of their furry loved one and I got to experiment with different companies paw print kits. I wasn't too keen on most and bought some polymer clay and had my girl step onto it thus creating her print and viola! I used that print from years ago and pushed polymer clay into it (very gently) and created a reverse paw print. The reverse print let me feel the texture from her paw pad and it was like I was holding her paw again. The picture below is right after baking the clay.

The close up paw print picture below shows the texture from Raj's paw and I can feel the texture! It is amazing and such a lovely way to incorporate your furry critters into your art.

I do hope you have enjoyed, and maybe learned something from this post. Feel free to ask any questions, I am still learning as I go so if I can't answer something I will find someone that can! :) 

Don't forget to check out our current challenge "Celebrate Your Style" that runs until June 4th! And remember we have some fabulous prizes from amazing sponsors like The Funkie Junkie Boutique, Emerald Creek Craft Supplies and Alleystamp! 

Hugz and Carpe Diem!

Spotlight Artist - Sara Emily is Tempting You With Texture!

Hello! It's Sara Emily here, and I'm excited to present this month's Spotlight Post, where I will be tempting you with texture! For those of you who see my work, you might see I like to add a bit of texture.

Two things come to mind when I think of texture: visual  and tactile.  Visual texture creates the illusion of dimension, while leaving the surface smooth and flat. Tactile texture has dimension that you can both see and touch. For today's post I'm going to provide some examples of different types of texture, focusing mostly on the tactile version. Even though I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, I do tend to use a bit of tactile texture in my work, but not as much in the line of visual texture.

A couple of examples of visual texture follow.  In the first project, you can see visual texture on both the smaller tags and the larger tag. For the two smaller tags, I applied Distress paint, and then blended on distress inks once the paint was dry.  By flicking on some water, allowing it to sit for a moment, and then heat drying, I was able to give some depth to the background.  By layering paints, inks and then paints again, I can achieve a lot of depth. Specifically this is done by first giving the surface a coat of gesso. Then I placed some Distress paints on my craft mat, spritzed with water and dragged my dried gesso covered card through the puddles. I heat dried and repeat until I'm satisfied with the look. In this example I stamped a Tim Holtz Flourish image with Picket Fence Distress paint and heat dried.  Next, I blended on some Distress inks, and wiped over the flourish to remove the ink from it.  The dried Distress paint acts as a resist.  I flicked on watered down Distress paint in Picket Fence, and then finished with a stamped sentiment. Lot's of depth while the surface remains smooth and flat--visual texture!

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In the following project, I used paper products--vintage book pages and tissue wrap and stamped images to provide  some visual texture. Of course there's some tactile texture here, too, in the form of crackle and rusted metal elements.

For my card Let It Snow (again!), I created visual texture and depth using a household product--plastic wrap! This is not my idea, but I saw it somewhere in blogland quite some time ago.  I gave my card a coat of gesso, and dried.  I sprayed with Distress spray stains in Wilted Violet and Blueprint Sketch, misted with water, and laid my wrap over the wet sprays.  I scrunched it up and left it to dry overnight.  When I removed it, it left this beautiful frosted appearance. Additional visual texture is made using a snowflake stencil and paints and inks. Tactile texture is given using an embossing folder and embossing powder.

OK, you get the idea of visual texture, and now let's move onto the good stuff--Tactile texture!!! Tactile texture can be achieved in a variety of ways--using mediums, pastes, papers and other textiles, embossing folders and powders, gesso and paints, die cuts, found objects, and even household products. I could go on and on, because I am always searching for more ways to add texture, but I'm afraid I might bore you.  So, I'll try to limit myself to some of my favorites, and save others for another day.  I'm sure much of this is not new to you, but hopefully there will be something that will inspire you!

We'll start with my favorite--RUST! I'm always looking for new ways to get a rusted look, and recently I've had the opportunity to try some techniques new to me. There are many, many ways to get the look of rust, some of them require fancy products,some just paints and others use a variety of mediums. Mine came strictly from what I had on hand. I guess you could call me a frugal crafter!

For the following two projects, I used similar techniques.

In the photo below, you can see I added visual texture first by adding  gesso, vintage book pages, and paint to my background. To get the rusty texture, I added glass bead gel at the top and bottom over my rusty colored paint.  This starts out white in color, but dries clear.  The stuff on either side is crackle medium, and we'll talk about that later.

In this next photo, the glass bead medium has dried (as has the crackle medium), and I've added Distress paints in Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain and DecoArt Quinacridone Gold and Cadmium Orange followed by Ginger alcohol ink. This is a bit too glossy, so I gave it a coat of DecoArt Ultra Matte Varnish and then a light dab of Walnut Stain paint once more. I repeated this technique on the butterfly, and the metal embellishment. To see more photos of this project you can visit my Rusted Porcelain post.

In the next two photos, I've made rusted embellishments by using a couple of pantry staples: cinnamon and instant coffee. In the first photo it is used on the rusted grate on the backing and in the following photo, it's used on the buckles. For the grate, I used packing material, added Mod Podge and sprinkled with a mixture of cinnamon and coffee.

I start by adding Mod Podge to each buckle, then sprinkle with a mixture of the cinnamon and coffee. When dry, I add another coat of Mod Podge to seal. I find it helpful to pour out some Mod Podge to a little cup, so you don't contaminate the large bottle with your cinnamon and coffee. For the buckles, but not the grate, I gave the dried buckles a coat of the Ultra Matte varnish to take down the shine of the (matte) Mod Podge and then a light touch of Quinacridone Gold.

Another rust technique I used on one of these projects is using household chemicals to create rust on metal hardware.  while the nuts and nails were already rusted in the garage, I rusted the keyrings and washes with a bath of vinegar for 24 hours followed by a soaking of kosher salt and hydrogen peroxide for another 24 hours, and finally, a sun bath for another day. A bit time consuming but effective.

On my next rusted project, I was looking for a rusted tin roof vibe.  I got that (I hope), by using a piece of corrugate board from a shipping box.  I distressed it and painted it with Folk Art Metallic Gunmetal Grey and heat embossed while the paint was still wet with a mixture of embossing powders: Embossing puffs in brown and a mixture of Cloisonne  High Gloss Granules (which are like Ultra Thick Embossing Powder), black embossing powder, and Perfect Pearls Powder in Pewter. To see more detail s of this wall hanging you can visit my Stay Curious post.

  

I don't really know what look I was going for here, but it all ended up looking like rust to me in the end.

I started by embossing my card with a Tim Holtz Steampunk Texture Fade and sprayed with Distress Spray stains, Distress inks, Lindy's Moon Shadow Mist, Ranger embossing puffs, Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder, and some of my hand compounded Cloisonne Granule/embossing powder/Perfect Pearls powder. I can't tell you the exact colors used, because I was just flinging stuff at this at the time.  but start flinging your own colors, and see what happens! That's the beauty of mixed media. The ball chain is altered using alcohol inks and embossing powders, and the gears paint and embossing puffs, powders, and Cloisonne Granules. To see details of this and the other textures on my card, visit my Grungy Valentine post.

 

Well, I think we might move on to something other than rust!  How about CRACKS?  Another favorite of mine. The following two photos show hearts with cracks, although  it's hard to see them in the second shot. I actually followed Pamellia's tutorial here, but I thought no discussion of cracks would be complete without mention of  her Mega Crackle.  I added a little heat embossing for additional texture. The purple frame also has cracks.  I used Crackle paste (Golden in this case), Distress ink and paint to color it, and DecoArt antiquing cream to show off the crackles.

Grungy Love

Special Gift

The bigger cracks on this little guy's top hat come from crinkling up the card before making into a hat. I rubbed a little Ranger Perfect Ink Refresher into the card before wrinkling and beating on it and then forming it into a tophat. I used Distress Crackle paint, acrylic paint, and DecoArt Grey Antiquing Cream to get and highlight the small cracks.

Something A Little Less Sinister 

I got the nice large cracks on this skull by using DecoArt Crackle Paste in thin and thick layers. By priming the styrofoam skull with black gesso before applying the paste, I got a nice old, decaying bone look. I highlighted the cracks further and aged the "bone" with DecoArt Creme Wax. I invite you to click on the link below the photo (if you dare!) to see how gruesome this little guy is, and to see how I made his rotted hair.

Decay and Spiders! Beware!

I love the love of cracked glass, and here I made faux cracked glass on my clock faces using Tim Holtz' Faux Cracked Glass technique.  I used Ranger Glue and Seal (matte) on  clean and dry vials, acetate, and glass watch crystals, followed by Distress Rock Candy Distress Crackle paint in a medium layer. Make sure the Glue and Seal is perfectly dry first. Allow both mediums to dry on their own. I used various alcohol inks to give the glass an aged appearance.  You can click on the link below the photo for details on how I crackled the clock die cut.

  

Fe Fi Faux Fum 

Other ways to create texture on your mixed media pieces include embossing folders like I used in the example below.

Oh, Baby It's Cold Outside 

Use stencils and paste--texture or crackle like I did on this shabby card.


Shabby Wedding Card

Or throw everything including the kitchen sink at your paper or card. Here I used pieces of coffee filters, cheese cloth, and microbeads and then topped it off with crackle paste and a stencil. Isn't it yummy?

Shabby Monochromatic

Or use your mistakes! Here, I used a piece of card I had heat embossed with Distress Embossing powders which leave a gritty texture when heated.  I did a poor job on the embossing, but saved the panel in my "trash" box anyway. For this project I tore it into strips and adhered to a heavy card base. I gave it a coat of gesso using a credit card, and before the gesso fully dried, I scraped over it with the  credit card again, revealing a gritty worn texture. A few torn vintage book pages with a watery wash of gesso complete the background all ready for what ever you want to throw at it or leave it just as it is for a shabby vintage look.

Sometime's it's just fun to see how your new products will react with your old ones! In this sample, I had sprayed my scrap of card with Rusty Hinge Distress Spray stain and dropped on some Perfect Pearls powder in Forever Green.  I spritzed with water and dried with my heat tool.  I added a thick layer (like spreading peanut butter) of my new Distress Crazing medium and again dried with the heat gun. This looks really amazing in real life--like old worn and musty leather. Oh, I love grunge!

I think I will leave it at that before I bore you to tears! Remember, with mixed media there's no wrong way to do anything! Just try different things, and you will find something you love!

There's still time to play along with Samra's Earth Day challenge which runs until May 4th! Get out your earthy colored mixed media products and possibly a recycled/upcycled item, and let's celebrate our great beautiful earth!

Thank you for giving me your attention and sticking with me through this LONG post; I do hope you come away with some inspiration!

Hugs and Blessings!

Sara Emily