Guest Post: Stenciled Resist with Robyn
December 16, 2014
Creating Texture & Resists with Gel Medium
Hello, it’s Robyn Wood from Australia with you again today. It’s exciting to be able to share a second technique on Julie’s blog! Huge thanks to Julie for allowing me to share another post and stencilling technique with you all.
Creating resists and texture with gel mediums are common techniques for art journalers and mixed media artists. I’m putting a little colourful twist on my project by using matt gel medium and pigment heavy ink sprays to create a gorgeous shimmery texture to float some butterflies over. This is a pretty classic arrangement of butterfly images across a page but it is one I never tire of! Butterflies are a motif I use over and over, they represent freedom and joy to me and provide inspiration with their myriad of patterns and colours.
Gel medium is very useful for art journalers – it is the perfect glue and will create lovely resists. For this technique I have used matt gel medium as I didn’t want the shine of gloss gel competing with the beautiful shimmery ink sprays. It also allows catches and holds some of the colour spray to add to the texture/resist effect.
Start the page by creating a textured base using stamped tissue paper. I stamped Darkroom Door background stamps on plain white tissue paper using Archival inks in Aquamarine and Watering Can. Watering Can is a soft grey and gives a less start effect than stamping with black ink.
Tear the tissue paper into random shapes and adhere to page with matt gel medium. Overlap some of the pieces but also leave some parts of the page bare. Add colour to the page in a mottled, random fashion using Ranger Distress Paint in Mustard Seed, Squeezed Lemonade and Spiced Marmalade.
Position the Mini Blazonry stencil over parts of the page and scrape through portions of the stencil with Liquitex Matt Gel Medium. Allow some of the shapes to have an incomplete coverage of gel medium. Allow to dry well.
Spray random sections of the page with spray inks – Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise and Heidi Swapp Color Shine Tropicana Teal and Citron.
While the page is still wet, wipe some parts of the ink away and add rock salt crystals to areas with puddles or larger drops of ink. Allow the page to dry well and then brush off the rock salt. The salt crystals will absorb some colour and add dots of unique texture to the page. Make sure you don’t hurry the drying step as the effect won’t work as well! Once the page is dry, use a baby wipe to remove some of the colour sitting on top of the gel medium to give a further dimension to the layered effect.
Add a little water to some Picket Fence Distress Paint and add splatters to the page with a paint brush. The watery paint will reactivate a little of the Dylusions spray and create beautiful drops of colour!
Stamp a number of butterflies of all different sizes onto the Prima Epiphany paper using black Archival ink. Do more than you think you might need to give you more options in arrangement. Colour with Dyna-Flow ink. You could use any paper which has a subtle pattern and a pale colour.
Trim out the butterflies and arrange over the page. Once you are happy with the arrangement, attach by just the middle section of each butterfly. Raise the wings of the larger ones slightly once they are dry to enhance the ‘taking flight’ effect.
Add some journaling or a quote as I have and the page is complete.
Supplies:
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There are a lot of steps for this project so I created a YouTube video showing a bunch of extra photos and close-ups.
I hope you enjoyed learning how to create this page. I am honoured to have been able to provide you with some inspiration today. I love sharing projects online, particularly via Instagram and would love you to say hi if you pop by.
Crafting has always been present in my life - I learnt to sew on an old Singer treadle when I was about four & earned pocket money in my parent’s upholstery business by sewing cushion covers and beanbags. A lifelong love of colour & texture was strengthened when I discovered paper craft in the mid 90’s and more recently through art journaling and mixed media. Mixed media has become my creative obsession!
I enjoy sharing projects and techniques online, particularly on my blog and via Instagram and am blessed to be on the design teams for Darkroom Door stamps and LuLu Art.
Online Links
Blog : http://purplesalt.net
Instagram: http://instagram.com/purplesaltcr8
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PurpleSaltCr8
YouTube: Purple Salt YouTube