"Nature is ...." an Art Journal

Hello everyone!

Michelle back at you with an art journal that resulted from a play session I had with the new Acrylic Art Sprays by Marabu. 

These are the fab sprays Donna Downey discovered and showed us all on her youtube channel.

Well, after having a play myself can I just say......YOU HAVE TO HAVE THEM ALL!!!!!

How many times have you sprayed a background that you love with  Dylusions Sprays, or even to a lesser extent Lindy's, and then find, when you want to add another medium or layer, the effect is lost due to the water soluble nature of the sprays? 

They just keep moving when sometimes you just do not want them to! 

Well behold, here is the answer ..... Marabu Art Sprays! 

Now, please do not get me wrong, I love My Lindy's and these sprays will not replace them in my art supply arsenal, but they do complement the other sprays as their properties react totally different. 

Basically, the Marabu Art Sprays, once dry, do not move, yes they are permanent!

So for background creation they are just perfect!

 Enough of my carry on, here is the page I created after going nuts with all the colour goodness:

 Here is how I went about my little experiment.

I randomly sprayed through a variety of stencils that I just happened to have on my desk, 

there was no plan and I literally just slapped them all on "willy-nilly" (Oh dear I am starting to sound like my Mother). 

I stuck with a cool colour palette. When the sprays are wet they merge and blend together beautifully, just the way the other sprays do (and what we love them for!).  The colours are so vibrant and they spray with a fine mist that has lovely coverage, so they will go a long way. 

The difference comes into play when they are dry, they do not react any further. 

So lets test that out shall we?

 

Once the first layer was dry I added more colours, (colours that would turn to "mud" if they were reactive),

and looky here, they stayed put and behaved themselves!

I just kept adding more colours till I had a right royal mess really, as I wanted this background to become an underpainting to really test the permanence out.

 

Ok now I have to tell you "GET THE GOLD"! 

When you first spray with this metallic colour it is a "milky" mess but on drying.....OH MY!!! 

It is just glorious! 

So here is the state of the page I ended up with.... I know right, sooooo busy!

So lets get it covered a little and really test these babies out!

I sketched a feather shape, then outlined it with a Fineline needle tip bottle, filled with White Acrylic Paint and Flow Medium, to one side of my page. This will become my focal point on the page.....eventually!

 With white acrylic paint or you could even use Gesso, I covered the background around the edges of the feather so that it highlighted the shape, popping it forward out of the background. 

 The sprays worked perfectly, none of the colour seeped through. If you did this with Dylusions spray underneath you would get colour coming through and tinting the white paint. 

 

I only added a light layer of white as I still wanted some of the background to show through.

 I pulled some of the white back through a stencil with a baby wipe as I still wanted to test the permanence out and it still did not move with the water on the wipe....YAY!

So here is the page so far, I felt I wanted the feather to pop more so out comes some metallic paint!

 

I gave the feather a few more outlines to make it pop more and also a bit of scribble writing up the side.

Now I am almost done, thanks for sticking with me!

 

All that needs doing is a title or quote, and for this I used alpha stamps and Black Stazon ink.

As I do not trust myself to stamp straight on my page perfectly I cheat a little and stamp my quote onto tissue or greaseproof paper then use Gel Medium to adhere it to my page. The tissue dries transparent so works well.

After the Gel Medium dried I added a few spots of the metallic paint and my page was done!

So, how would you use these with other water reactive sprays? The answer here is fairly simple, I would use the Marabu sprays as my initial layers, then add Lindy's towards the end to add a little shimmer or sparkle, as the acrylic sprays (apart from the metallic colours) are a flat but vibrant colour. 

I am sure with a few more play sessions with these bottles of goodness I will find loads of alternative uses, and I am not packing away my favourite Lindy's Sprays, I am going to play with both! 

Why? 

Because I hoard and I can! LOL

One last look at the finished page:

And a few detail shots:

So that is it from me hope you get your hands on some of the sprays they have been flying off the shelves as soon as they arrived!

Here is where you will find them in the Artified shop: Marabu Art Sprays

Thanks for dropping by, see you next month!

Michelle

'Stop and Smell the Flowers' by Elisa Ablett

Hi Everyone!

My turn up on the Artified Blog today with a step by step Art Journal page featuring Vicki Boutin Art Crayons - Cool Palette and Dylusions Ink Sprays.

If you haven't tried the Art Crayons as yet, put them on your list as a must have! They are so creamy and vibrant in colour and easily blended using many methods AND are easily water soluble as well, so many uses!

Here is my page - 

Links to products in the shop for easy reference at the end of the tutorial!

Now onto the first step - 👇

Step 1 - First prepare your background, in this case I used a teal Dylusions paint painted roughly over the page, then once dry I sprayed Black Marble Dylusions Ink Spray on both the top and bottom of the page and tilted the page to make the drips. I added a little Teal Ink Spray as well to the top and bottom.

Next Step - Gesso the page in the middle roughly again, Then glue a square of water colour paper to the middle your gesso square and a few bits of ephemera to the lower right hand side for a bit of added texture. gesso over the top of the ephemera to dull their colour. Once dry draw black lines with a black marker and ruler on your square.

 Splatter watered down gesso over page.

Grab another square of watercolour paper and your Art Crayons and a craft mat!

One great technique to use with the crayons is to scribble them directly onto your craft mat and spray the colour with water and mix with a paint brush, you now have a lovely vibrant and thick watercolour paint.

To stamp the flowers I put my stamp on a block and then dipped the stamp in the paint on my mat and stamped on the water colour paper. To get the darker background i scribbled directly onto my stamp with the crayon and lightly misted the stamp with a spray bottle of water and then stamped over the top of my layered flower. To add details, use a paint brush and using the technique above scribble colour on your craft mat and spray with water to make a paint. Then pick up colour with your brush to add details.

Next step, tracing around your silhouette onto your page to get your outlines in place with a black archival safe marker.

Next step - add your die cut feathers, in my case I handmade my feathers with a cool technique using a silicone mould and modelling paste. Scribble your colour crayons directly onto your feathers and then mist with your water spray bottle and using a paint brush move your colour again over that area.

Stamp over the top of your flowers again with a black archival ink to add finer detail. Set aside to dry. Then fussy cut your flowers and leaves out.

Next step - grab your layered stencils and lay them over your silhouettes, scribble your coloured crayons over the stencils. Then using a baby wipe, wipe the the colour through the stencil onto your silhouettes. Adding colour and texture. Once dry we are now going to add your black colour to add shading to your page. Scribble your black crayon from the Vicki Boutin - Art Crayons Classic Colours set around your silhouttes and feathers and flowers. Using a wet paintbrush and your finger (YES your finger lol) smooth the black and blend around. Dab the harsh edges of your black shading with a baby wipe to further smooth the colour out.

Next step ! - stamping with your crayons - scribble onto your craft mat again and spray the colour with water and then dip your stamp into the colour and stamp onto your page as per the below photos.

Last steps! Glue your flowers and leaves onto your page just over the top of the feathers, add your cut our sentiment and add more splatters of white watered down gesso over your page.

Here are some close ups of the finer details - 

You are now finished!

Product Links 

Vicki Boutin Art Crayons - Mixed Media Oil Pastel

Tim Holtz Layered Stencil - Diamonds

Tim Holtz Layered Stencil - Leafy

Dylusions Paint - Teal

Gesso

Dylusions Ink Sprays

Stamps

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, I hope that you have enjoyed the tutorial! 

Make sure you leave some love xx

Elisa