Monday, March 16, 2009

Rhapsody in Red - GPP Street Team Crusade # 29



So for this month's GPP Street Team Crusade, Michelle encouraged us to get down and dirty with our paint brushes and play around with paint effects like dry brushing, mono-printing, and a little thing she likes to call "dirty brush".

Kind of sounds a little naughty, but it is all good clean dirty fun !

One thing that I like to do periodically is have a paint play session to create a ton of painted papers that I can use later as backgrounds, in my art journal or in collages. I sometimes choose one color to concentrate on at a time, if my stock of one color is low or if I find a new color scheme I want to play with. For this play time, I chose red.

I usually get out a pile of papers, a couple of cheap chip brushes, a make-up sponge, few kinds of paint in my chosen color (ie: craft acrylics, Golden Fluids, Lumiere metallics, inks, etc), a ton of my favorite stamps and stencils and a plastic table cloth on the floor so I can just throw the wet papers down to dry in between layers.

Then I play.

This is my Rhapsody in Red :

Here is some watercolor paper with Lumiere paint in gold dry brushed over top.

This piece shows my hand carved circle stamp in the background. Then I pooled Lumiere paint in gold and some Vermillion Red Golden Fluids mixed with water on the cheap sketch book paper and let it dry for a couple of hours. Gorgeous effect, I think !


This one has a variety of tools, like hand carved stamps (the points), masks and my own flourish stencil, used both as a stencil and as a mono-print. I also used Michelle's dirty brush technique - mixing red and black on a dry chip brush and stroking the surface here and there.

This page has my hand carved leaf stamp and then my bought letter stencil used as a mono-print - apply a lot of paint to the stencil, place on top of your paper and rub.

The next couple of shots show where I tried a tip Michelle shared for mono-printing brush strokes from an acetate onto your paper :

Paint on acetate

Smeared paint around with a brush

Mono-print onto painted paper

Second mono print onto white blotter paper

What did I learn from this one ? It can be a bit of a balancing act with acrylic paint and brush stroke mono-printing. How much paint to stroke one to your acetate to get a nice print of the brush stroke, but not too much to have a "paint blob" mono-print. Also, not to rub too hard, practice a little portion control I guess, to get better "strokes" printed.

Playing with paint, brushes, paper and all the other fun tools is really my idea of perfect art time ! I lose myself in the play, not really worrying about any end results but often falling in love with what comes out of it !

It even makes great left-overs ! Check out this blotter paper, where I rubbed off all my tools, getting every last bit of paint goodness off of them !

And this veteran of my play time (see the hand prints from the Shape Up Challenge), the card board I use to cover my play table. I think it will soon be retired and added to a journal or something.

A lot of great Crusaders have had a wonderful time playing with Brush Effects. Head over to the Street Team blog to check out their links as well as the wonderful tutorials and inspiration that Michelle provides! Then join us in the challenge fun !

Onward, Crusaders ! Happy Monday !

21 comments:

michelle ward said...

Weeeeee! Look at you having fun with the brushes. I agree with you - getting lost in play is the best. Not worrying about the outcome leads to intersting discoveries. Thanks for sharing your process with the team Kim - and for showing us and recognizing that the remnants and evidence of the workspace are juicy elements not to be thrown away! Often I'll take my mucked up cardboard and use it as a journal cover - nothing like it!

Anonymous said...

You know what I love about the Street Team? It's that no matter the challenge, everyone's posts are so detailed and complete. I love reading about all the processes...

YOUR RED PAGES ROCK....drooling over that gold paint too...and the blotter page. YUM

Genie Sea said...

You make my want to don my khakis, grab a brush and paint the world :)

carolyn said...

hi kim!
you sure had loads of fun playing with paint!
i'm looking forward to seeing what you do with these gorgeous papers.

have a wonderful week!

jgr said...

Oh yes! These are awesome, I agree, some of the best work is the 'remnants' --very spontaneous and RICH!

I also like what you said about my sketch cover:
"Orange universe" very well said-my friend!

Mescrap said...

Those pages look so awesome with the 'red' !!

arlene said...

Wow! You had fun, but look at what you made! Beautiful! I love it all and it makes me long to dig out the paint and get messy. I can't wait for it to warm up enough that I can move back out to the art barn and play.
xo arlene

Julie said...

Oooh red! That looks awesome! I love how you have come up with so many different looks...and all of them red! I had a blobby problem with mine too which of course is all part of the learning. Absolutely love your blotter page too!

Melissa said...

You've got some radical...ravishing...racey... red'ness going on there. Gorgeous!

~magick~
Melissa

Marlynn said...

Wow - I so like love the pooled effect. The red is yummy and the gold so rich! Beautiful pages. Marlynn

Sherry said...

Your art time always leaves me feeling breathless and giddy. I could just imagine being in kindergarten with you -- I see the two of us with our smocks on at the little table, paint brushes, finger paints (didn't you love the finger paint paper???), and just going to town!!!!

Jennifer said...

So fun! I had a tiny bit of play time today and I thought of you and your wonderful pages!

I love the colors and the word "rhapsody" I love that word today :)

Have so much fun playing :)

Elizabeth said...

Hey there Kim!!
First off, I LOVE the look of your new blog- Banner is terrific!!
The RED pages are fabulous but I must say that I just adore the white sketch paper catch all and the blotter paper at the end!! These must turn out so well becuase we are not thinking about what we are doing with these pieces we are focusing on the process to generate the others. They are all fabulous and I think taht you need to make a red Journal!!!
Now I must find some play time! You ahve really inspired me!!
Hugs!
Elizabeth

iHanna said...

You expressed that so nicely, not caring and still falling in love with the effect afterwards - it happens to me all the time! Love all these red pages - thanks for sharing! Take care!

Dawn said...

Kim, I can see you had a lot of fun with this one. A splash of red always brightens things up doesn't it?!

Anonymous said...

wow looking great. I really like the lighter pinky one closer to the end of your post. I haven't tried the actetate yet.

Anonymous said...

I really like your approach of doing pages and them spreading them out on the floor. I use old newspaper over the carpet, but plastic would be even better. And all the reds are wonderful.

Joy Logan said...

Love all the fun pages you did.

DMG said...

ooooo, I want to pkay too after seeing what you created! I hope your weekend with your friend was fun and that you got the much desrved rejuvenation you needed. Love,
Alberta

Seth said...

Not only are these background pahes pretty cool..it looks like you had a lot of fun creating them. And your table cover is definitely a keeper.

Regina said...

love your color choices. These papers resonate with me.