Background Tutorial...(with a give away)

Today I want to share a background tutorial with everyone.

This background will be turned into mixed media postcards for a swap I found over at

MixedMedia.club

and hosted by Lisa Vollrath who can be found at TenTwo Studios .

(I have been a fan of her collage sheets for years)

Anyhoo

I am in a use up mode lately. 

Trying to use the items I have around my house rather than go buy the newest latest & greatest.

I realize over the years I have bought and bought...now I need to USE!

This background uses what I have on hand, 

nothing fancy or special today, yet in the end I have a unique background waiting to be turned into

6 postcards.

Several for the swap and several left over.

Like what you see?

Leave a comment and you may get randomly picked for a piece of happy mail from me!

So let's begin...

First up I am using a 12x 12 piece of card stock (which I have piles and piles of)

You don't need special heavy weight paper for mixed media projects, I find that card stock works well for just about everything I am doing right now.

I tore some Washii tape and added strips here and there.

Squirted on some blue Americana acrylic paint (again I love my fluid acrylics but you know what...inexpensive craft paint works just as well for these) craft 

Spread it with a brush and squirt on some green paint by Plaid Folk Art.

Using the same brush spread it around.

Some orange...

And some yellow. Again these are the paints you can buy sometimes on sale 3 for a dollar etc. 

Nothing fancy.

I still had some white space so went back in and added a bit more color.

I took a fan brush and dry brushed some Liquitex unbleached titanium

to calm everything down and blend some edges. Wipe most of the paint off on a piece of scrap paper first, I wanted just a touch of the light color.

A script stamp and Archival ink...perfect for use on paints.

It dries quick and smudge proof. Script stamps are some of my favorite ones, they find their way onto just about everything I do.

A circle stamp by Club Scrap and Teal Blue StazOn ink.

This is where a mistake happened but turn the mistake into a happy design element.

I was using a mister with water & acrylic paint inside. The mister clogged so I took the nozzle off and started flicking, until I forgot I had the open bottle in my hand and tipped it over.

Yes...I meant to do that lol

Dylusions mist through a Crafter's Workshop stencil in areas.

Stamping with numbers and Archival ink.

I went back with the same stencil and used it with Gesso this time.

In some spots I got white diamonds, others the Gesso reactivated the Dylusions mist and it absorbed and  was tinted by the mist.

I went into my drawer full of rub ons.

You know the ones I HAD TO HAVE and never use.

Well here I just applied a bunch of the little tab ones randomly around the page.

Remember this is going to be cut up so each postcard will have a similar but different background.

Lastly some Punchinella and the same yellow paint as used on the background before.

I just rubbed it through with my finger here and there.

And here is the finished background all ready to be cut up.

Remember leave a comment and you'll get entered into a random drawing for a piece of happy mail from me created using a piece of this background.

Deadline for comments to be entered in the drawing is 8/30 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Art Journal page with Bister

Sharing another Art journal page today.

This was created by first gessoing the page and then

pulling out my Bister stains to play.

These are so fun to play with.

By varying the amount of water you add you can alter the opacity of the colors.

Plus you get awesome drippage

Once the background dried I added some random stamping with a script stamp

and black Staz On ink.

The upper part of the page I added more stamping  to create 

a sort of brick wall.

The flowers are another old foam stamp.

Using black Gesso with it I stamped all over the page.

I needed a thick paint so when I used my white Faber Castell Pitt Pen it would't reactivate the Bister.

Using the Pitt Pen I outlined all the flowers and stems to make them pop a bit.

I am going to enter this in the 

Mixed Media Monthly challenge

where this month's challenge (#6)

is to use stamps.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!