Altered Silver

Here's a quick and cool background technique.

This spread was painted with acrylic paints in yellow, red-orange and reddish brown, in that order. For each color, while the dollop of paint from the tube was wet, it was spread and wiped with a dry craft sponge. Each color was allowed to dry to the touch before the next color was applied.


(Blog note: Alive and well, but I've been engulfed in a huge endeavor, leaving very little time for the usual pursuits.)

I knew I would need more than the four layer-painted papers I'd already made so I caught another afternoon to make an additional quartet. And this time, I took a moment to snap a photo each time I paused to allow paint to dry. The photos don't have the best focus, but they should be clear enough to see how cool the changes are as the papers morph along through the stages of the process.

This group of four (only two shown) 8.5 x 11" papers began as bright pink cardstock. Using a sponge, paint was applied in the colors of this project's palette (wine, gray, taupe, yellow, blue and black), one hue at a time. When all traces of the cardstock were covered nicely, foam stamps were applied in a seemingly-random collection of shapes and symbols.

The result is this warm mixture of all the project's intermingled colors. Eventually, these papers are going to be made into some nifty tags and other stuff to go into the APoH book.



keywords: art,altered-art,paper-arts

I generally glance over the influx of wrapping paper in the stores at this time of year, looking for inexpensive rolls of nonspecific designs/colors that can be useful as paper for other purposes, such as in altered books and collage. Usually I'm attracted to solid color foils, sometimes with nonrepresentational embossing. Holographic paper is cool, too. For wrapping gifts, however, all it takes is some sheets of newspaper and a little acrylic paint. Here are some wrapping papers I made for a birthday earlier this year.

  
For each gift, I laid out a full sheet of newspaper, and loosely brushed down a base color. I kept the paint fairly thin and didn't try to cover the paper completely. Being able to see that the wrapping paper is altered newspaper is half the charm. When that paint was dry enough (almost right away), I applied foam stamps with metallic colors to make a loosely repetitive pattern. Additional sheets of newspaper were painted at the same time to accommodate a larger package (with the painted sheets connected to each other with acrylic medium). Then the paper was left to dry overnight before using it to wrap the gift.

For this package, I began with a white grocery bag and painted red, orange and yellow streaks from the bottom to the top of the four sides. I saw no need to paint the bottom of the bag, so that remained white. After the gift was placed into the bag, the top was folded down and two staples held it closed.

The ribbons could've been constructed from paper, too, but that would be a different technique to be explored some other time.



 

One of my current altered book projects has only one stage in motion: to initially paint spreads in various ways using a limited palette of six hues. Nothing else will be happening with that book until the pages are all painted, but thinking ahead, I anticipate that I might want to add some tags or whatnot into the pages, and if so, they too should be developed with the same palette.

So I had myself a good afternoon of making what I call layer-painted paper. I began by sponging multiple layers of paint onto four 8.5x11" sheets of cardstock until all the hues played nicely together. Then I covered most of the paint with stamping designs, layering those as well. With both sponge and stamps, each color was allowed to dry before the next color was added.

After photographing the papers in a group, I scanned them individually. Then I prepared four sets to print out in ATC size, after some hue/saturation modifications. Thus, out of the four layer-painted papers emerged sixteen ATC backgrounds. The cards were decorated with cut-and-painted strips of drywall tape (using the paint to adhere the strips to the cards) and then topped off with found text.

 

That meant most of the backgrounds would remain exposed which was the intention. The more of the backgrounds that can be seen, the better! I find myself captivated by the intricacies of layer-painted papers and even set up one of the scans as my desktop wallpaper.

At some point, the layer-painted papers will become some kind of "things" to go into that book project. This ATC series was just a fun (and unexpected!) bonus.


(My ATCs are not available for trade at this time.)
Technorati Tags: altered books, mixed media,atc/atcs, artist trading cards, paper arts

About a month ago, I went a little nuts for a couple of days just abstractly painting on paper. These were ordinary 20# (8.5x11") pages, and I tackled them with acrylic paints (normal and metallic), walnut ink and a few bits of text papers, occasionally spritzing over the paint with plain water.

When the excitement wore down, I had eight lovely pieces of paper in various colors and designs. I cut them in half vertically, applying one half to cardstock (to be cut for ATCs) and reserving the other half for collage and who-knows-what.

The photo does nothing to express how much fun I had doing this or how cool the pieces turned out. I'll definitely go nuts like this again at some time.



Technorati Tags: altered books, collage, paper arts, mixed media

This is so simple to do, but it creates a really cool appearance (if you like the look of spontaneous watercolor the way I do).

I began with two sheets of 20# paper in a pale gray color. I found from previous experiments that this particular paper takes to water rather well, which is why I chose it for this. (It's not the sort of paper you'd want to rush out to buy for this purpose; just part of the stock that I already had on hand.)

I spritzed water over the paper, then applied watercolors in blue and violet with no particular design or arrangement, letting the colors play together in a pleasing manner.

The papers were allowed to dry then attached to blue cardstock with matte medium (using a brayer to ensure a tight seal). When again dry, they were cut into ATC-sized sections, each card having a similar but different appearance.

Almost like a little kind of magic, to have a few ATC backgrounds ready for what might be added to them.




Technorati Tags: altered books, paper arts, artist trading cards

I began with several bits of handmade papers, tissue paper and some text pages. I used two (8.5x11") 20# pages for the supports. After choosing a color scheme (purple and yellow), I watercolored those colors over the text pages (so that some of the text was now on purple, and some was on yellow).

Then I tore up all the gathered materials into smaller bits and used matte medium to adhere all the bits onto the supports, ending up with some kind of "crazy quilt" thing.

After the pages had some time to dry, I coated them with a glaze of purple which did a great job in unifying all the diverse tones and shades. (The "quilt" was not so "crazy" any longer.)

When the pages were completely dried, I rubber-stamped them using a scrollwork design and Versamark (clear watermark) ink. The Versamark ink dries very slowly, giving plenty of time to do something over it. In this case, I used PearlEx powders with a soft brush over the stamping. The ultrafine mica powder is caught in the stickiness of the Versamark and held there, while it easily brushes away from other areas. For the PearlEx, I used an interference purple on one page and a gold on the other.

If you've already worked with PearlEx, this'll make sense okay. If you haven't, I hope the photo gives you some idea of how very cool these powders are, especially when used with the Versamark ink and rubber stamps. It's not at all messy the way glitter can be, but it gives an easy metallic sense of glittery opalescence.

All done, the pages were sprayed with fixative and they're ready to be used for however they might be useful in times to come. Maybe they'll be cut up to be used for tags or ATC backgrounds or funky borders in an altered book spread or...well, time will tell.



Technorati Tags: collage, paper arts, mixed media

I have a large bunch of paper which began collecting back in the early 80's when I was involved in small-press publishing and b/w artwork destined for offset printing. It makes no sense to me to buy up a bunch of new papers when I have such a full stock already on hand, but with the exception of some parchment and a bit of linen, the papers are generally 20, 60 and 65# and most of the cardstock is very brightly colored. In other words, the papers I have are pretty cool but since I've had them for so long, I see them as rather ordinary and boring. So one afternoon, I decided to "add some spice" to a few papers to see what might emerge.


Sponging with acrylic paint is a fun way to pass the time and play with colors. I wasn't especially excited over these four pages, but I do see potential in them. With a bit more pre-planning, the colors could have worked together a little better. I also think I could have prepared the pages first with a layer of medium to prevent the paper from simply soaking up the paint the way it did. With a layer of medium (nicely dried) first, the paints would remain more fluid and mix better when sponged on. I'll remember that for next time.

For this pair, I grabbed blue and canary yellow papers, then used watercolor washes on them, getting the papers very wet in the process. Then I splattered and flicked walnut ink over the color, and made the paper even wetter by spritzing water across the ink. It has an interesting appearance, but I'm not sure what application I might put this to as yet.

And then came the doodle page. I began with a bright green paper which was covered with watercolor washes of green and blue and splattered with walnut ink. When it was dry again, I doodled swirls and hearts with green and blue markers, then added little squigglies and whatevers with a gold metallic paint marker. It looks a little better in person than in the photo, but overall it does look as weird as the photo shows it.

So I used matte medium to attach the 20# paper to a piece of bright blue cardstock. Then I cut it into nine pieces ATC size. Aha, now this silly little painted paper doesn't look so weird anymore, and it has a future destination ahead of it...nine futures, in fact.



Technorati Tags: altered books, collage, paper arts, mixed media, artist trading cards

This was a simple little idea that could have big possibilities. I started by taping some wax paper to my drawing board, then taping a sheet of white tissue paper over that. (The wax paper acts as a barrier to prevent the tissue from adhering to the varnished board after getting wet.) Carefully (because tissue paper gets very fragile when wetted), I applied a layer of matte medium to the tissue paper to help give the paper some strength and make it slightly less absorbant.

When the medium was dry, I put several layers of watercolor washes over the paper. I used sienna and ochre hues with no particular design. Thanks to the initial layer of medium, I could work over this paper a lot more strenuously than tissue paper would typically permit.

When satisfied, I let the paper dry again.

I divided the tissue paper approximately into halves, then took one portion of the finished paper and adhered it into a waiting F&W spread with matte medium.

I really like the way this paper looks against the gessoed text pages. I marvel at how it was such a simple effect to achieve, and although I used a lot of water during the color washes, none of that water makes its way into the book spread, a definite plus.

Since I had painted a full sheet of tissue, I have plenty of remaining paper (already painted) to be used in other spreads or projects. Too, I now know it's very easy to make more!



Technorati Tags: altered books, paper arts, collage, mixed media

After playing with acrylic paint for awhile, the brushwater takes on some interesting colors. This water is destined to be disposed, but it can assist in transforming plain paper into something more special.


When my brushwater becomes very saturated, I grab a couple sheets of solid tone paper. I crush, crumple, twist and otherwise mutilate the paper short of tearing it. Then I simply put the paper into the brushwater, sometimes in a crumpled ball, sometimes folded, making sure every part of the paper gets touched by the water.

Now the paper sits in the brushwater for at least a half hour; the longer it remains, the more intense the results can be. Meanwhile, I prepare a section of the kitchen countertop by laying down a sheet of plastic large enough for whatever size the soaking paper is (usually 2 sheets of 8.5x11"), then cover the plastic with several layers of newpaper. On top of the newspaper, I add two paper towels opened flat.

When the paper has soaked long enough, I remove it from the brushwater carefully (one piece at a time) and gently squeeze most of the water out of it while holding it between my palms over a sink. The paper is extremely fragile at this time, being full of liquid. When most of the water has dripped off from the squeezing, I open the paper so-very-carefully and lay it flat over the prepared paper toweling. When it's nicely flat, I overlay the paper with another layer of paper toweling and press and smooth on/through that top layer (so that I'm only touching the paper towel, not the wet paper). This helps flatten the larger folds and crinkles, plus extracts more moisture (which is going into the paper towels and the newspapers). After pressing and smoothing for a bit, the entire works is left alone to dry (with the top layer of paper towel still in place).

After about an hour (more or less), the paper is dry and the resulting decorated paper can be viewed and worked with. The paper could also be ironed to remove the last bits of crinkles, if desired.


This works pretty well on every color of 20# paper I've tried (from very light to very dark) though naturally, the results will also depend on the color(s) of the brushwater. When I had a pale yellow brushwater, I used white paper scraps. For the wrapping paper (shown in the photo in both untouched and brushwatered versions) the brushwater was just a blah kind of mud-color, yet it reacted with the paper in a quite pleasant manner.

All of the newly decorated papers will find their way into my collages and altered books at some point.



Technorati Tags: altered books, collage, art journals