TRYING OUT SOME PAINT AND A NEW ART TOOL!

Painting loosely, freely, is a tool for beginners as well as advanced painters. Play! The goal is not necessarily to make paintings for exhibition. Rather, the goal is to allow yourself to loosen up, find your true creative self.

I bought three small squeeze bottles of acrylic paint. High flow is fun! Quin nickel azo gold, permanent violet dark, and green gold.


Love these colors!

I also purchased Fineline
bottles with two sizes of
tips. For today's post, I
used the finer line, not
the standard.

These are cool!

FIRST
Before using either, I drizzled colored tar gel on watercolor paper. In a small container, I mixed clear tar gel with acrylic paint. (Wish I'd used a bit more tar gel, so the scribble would be more transparent! I meant to merely tint the tar gel.) The end result of this first step looks messy, but was fun to do.


Wish I'd used less paint...this got too opaque.

SECOND
After that was dry,
I painted with the 3
acrylics, wet on wet,
leaving some white.
I actually worked
directly from the
bottles, but spread
the paint with a wet
brush too. Wheee!
(High Flow Acrylics have an ink-like consistency that lends itself to a wide range of techniques: hand-lettering, spraying, and much more. Use them with an airbrush, a dip pen, a refillable marker, etc.  I have the 1-oz. bottles that I can fit with a fineline head.)


Not done yet. Looks sorta "intuitive," doesn't it?!

FINISHING

When that was dry, I used the fineline to accent some areas still further.

Fineline applicators allow you to create complex designs and draw lots of cool lines. They make precise, accurate, controlled placements of liquid media possible.

Use them with acrylics, inks, gutta, watercolors, silk dyes, stains, water-based adhesives, glazes, and other liquid media. They have a cap and wire system that resists clogging. Buy them (empty) for about $9.00 for two of the same size. You can get replacement tips, too, which tells me maybe people DO clog them!

 

If you're inspired and can afford them, give these products a try. They're a blast!

(Attention Golden and FineLine, I'd love a few freebies if you read this!)



Two Examples of Fabric Resist

Fabric Fun Made Easy!

We've said it before, working the resist technique can be COOL, whether on canvas, paper, or other fabric. See links below to MORE posts with MORE resist methods!


Blue school glue on washed cotton fabric.

Let the resist material dry before washing colors
over the design. Then wash the school glue out after the permanent paint or ink dries!


Thin tar gel

If you want to try this
with kids, fluid acrylic
medium can be used
(with paint shirts on!).
Intense, vivid watercolors
are a good substitute for
permanent colors.

I luuuuve this tempera resist project, below: http://mixedmediamanic.blogspot.com/2015/08/white-tempera-resist.html
and this one, too! http://mixedmediamanic.blogspot.com/2015/04/more-techniques-with-citrasolv.html

Our recent contest was won by jusaweecatnap, who should kindly and privately email me with her postal address in order to claim her prizes!

MY THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO VISIT THIS SITE! HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

WINNER ANNOUNCED, AND BLASTS FROM THE PAST!

The name chosen from the hat (actually a bowl!) to win the free art book, Creating Decorative Paper, was Geri deGruy! My thanks to the others who participated, and I encourage them to please try again...I'm planning another giveaway even as we speak.

One section of that book concerns resists of many types. I've discussed them here before, and love to incorporate them into my mixed media work. Clear tar gel on absorbent paper can produce fantastic results if you let it dry, then wash vivid color over the area.

Can you see the fish shapes?

 Here's the original post.










Wax resist is another simple, easy method: In the butterfly example below, I used waxed paper. The tutorial is here.


I adore these colors!



I used a fabric resist material here.
See the original post!

             


 

MAKE A GORGEOUS ACRYLIC SKIN! How to Create a Swirly Embellishment

This lesson is so easy that even a child could make something beautiful! When it's thoroughly dry, use the acrylic skin as a collage element in a painting.

You will need :

1. a disposable plastic or aluminum container 
2. acrylic gel medium, glossy (thinned to a smooth, creamy consistency) or tar gel
3. liquid acrylic colorants (I like airbrush colors)
4. eyedropper or other tool to drip colorant
5. feather or other tool to drag through



Acrylic Skins are Easy to Make



Pour the acrylic medium into the container (I used the cover of a CD pack, since they are too nice to throw away!). 

Then drop the colors of your choice here and there. Use a brush, a bottle with a nozzle, or an eyedropper to place the drips.

Next, drag a tool through the medium, swirling the colors as you go. Do as much or as little marbleizing as you like. The acrylic medium dries quite clear, but it takes a day or three, so be patient, set the container aside, and wait.

I removed the circular shape I made quite easily when it was dry enough, by picking at one edge with a sharp tool and simply peeling it up. The shapes you make can be cut with scissors, too!

HOW TO USE CLEAR TAR GEL AS A RESIST MEDIUM

1. Paint, stamp, or drizzle tar gel on absorbent, DRY paper. Here I'm using good, heavy watercolor paper. I could have painted it with light colors first if I had wanted to. You definitely should, for added interest!

2. When the tar gel is dry,
wash over it with
watercolors or any waterbased, diluted paint or ink. Here I also used non-permanent markers and added black accents with a pen.