Distressed Watercolouring !!!

Good morning everyone and a very happy Sunday to you all....

Today I want to share my renewed love for my Ranger distress pads !!!

When I started art journalling it was one of the first this I bought but apart from stamping or inking edges I never really did anything else with them and they were soon relegated to the bottom of the art draw. 

Well I have to say I am now so back in love with the possibilities they hold I just had to show you what I've been doing with them.....

I've discovered that they are super amazing to use as watercolours !!!..... Yes you heard me.....by rubbing the pad onto an acrylic block or a non stick craft sheet you can add water to the pigments and paint like watercolours.....I just love it....I know I'm not going to be the first to discover this but I just love the effect it gives!!!

By adding more or less water to the pigment you can get different shades of colour. 

I can honestly say I have a new found  love for these pads. Never again will I look at them just for stamping and with the amazing array of colours both vibrant and subdued there is something for everyone. 

The mini pads are fabulous for travelling and I have made sure they are in my travel art kit. A definately must have !!!!

The colours I used are,,,
Picked Raspberry
Peacock Feathers
Wild Honey
Crushed Olive

The red heart was a felt tip pen

Thanks for stopping by

Bright and painty hugs

Tracy

X

The 12 Brands of Christmas - Brand #10 Ranger Distress Inks

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways... (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Shirley here.  You can find plenty of tutorials for Distress Inks on the internet, but this is just a run-down of what I love doing with Distress Inks, my number one desert island item (as long as I can take them all!).

Blending

Get softly blended colours using a blending tool and sponge, working from your craft mat onto your card to get the best finish.  Or swipe the pads across your card for deeper colour, overlapping the colours with your blending tool.

Distress Inks contain stuff (technical term) that remains wet for a little while, and any handling before the ink is dry will partially remove the ink.  Ask me how I know.  To avoid this, give it a short blast with a heat gun to set the ink before handling.

Stencils

The obvious way is to sponge inks through the stencil, but I like Tim's other method of applying the ink pad directly to the stencil, spritzing the ink, then laying the stencil, ink side down onto the card, dabbing up the excess with a paper towel.

Colour Stability

The colour is reliable and stays true when water is added.

Which brings me on to ...

Spritzing

Oh it's so much fun spritzing Distress Inks!  Ink up a stamp with your Distress Ink pad, give it a light spritz, then stamp onto your card.  Add a little more spritzing and watch the magic happen.  (Results will vary depending on the card you are using.)

The Magic of Walnut Stain

There's something magical about Walnut Stain.  If you sponge the edges of your work with Walnut Stain, it immediately adds depth to your work, and it seems to complement any colour scheme, even when you think it wouldn't.

Stacking/Storage

You can stack the full-sized pads several high on top of each other to save space.  Keep them in colour groups, add an index label and a coloured label on the side for easy identification.  I had mine stacked in piles 8 high until I bought a craft storage rack.

Minis

Oh, Minis - you're definitely my favourite!  You can fit 48 Minis into an A4 plastic storage box.    The circular mini blending sponges fit neatly into the recess under each pad.  Two blending tools stop the Minis from moving around in the box.

I'm not a neat crafter (!) but I do get twitchy if the colours are out of order, or if the writing on the lids isn't all facing the same way. OCD, me?

Instant Colour Palette

I love to make a customised ink palette by dabbing select Minis onto an acrylic block, then I can pick up the colour with a wet paintbrush and paint neatly (not very often), or slosh and splatter (yeah!).

Pop back tomorrow for some sloshing and splattering - my favourite technique!  Here's a little sneak peek...

See you tomorrow!
Shirley

Distress Inks here.
Blending tools and foam pads here.
Heat tool here.
Stencils here.
Acrylic blocks here.

Texture crackle

For ages now I've been bugging Vicki to get in some crackle paste and I was overjoyed when she sent me a tub of Golden Crackle Paste. I could not wait to try it out and here is my first project using it. As a lover of texture paste, this didn't let me down at all.

It was surprisingly light and this piece of card I think is only about 200gsm so not heavy mixed media grade at all. I slapped it on and for my first background I wasn't sure how thick I should go with it before it cracked. 

As you can see I was a bit mean in places and didn't spread it thick enough to get even cracking but in the places where I did spread it thicker it worked like a dream.

I left it to dry over night to be sure it would dry thoroughly before I went on to the next stage and when I came back to it the next day I was very surprised to find that even though it felt hard and brittle, it didn't flake off my card even when I bent and flexed it.

I coloured it with Ranger Distress Stain in Picked Raspberry and it wasn't until this point that the cracks really stood out.

I wanted to add an image so I stamped this Prima Bloom Girl stamp onto some tissue and glued it on. In order to add some colour I painted in some of the image with some watered down gesso.

I coloured her in with some Faber Castell Brush Pens and added a script stamp and a few Prima Pebbles to finish off.

Next time I'll layer it a bit thicker to get a better effect and I'll show you here what it looks like.

Have fun

Jaine x