A special Saturday {video}

It's Saturday again already, seriously, where did this week go? We were crazy busy here at PAHQ this week. So many shop orders for places far and wide; order went out to shops in places like Aussie, USA, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany...and as ever, plenty within the UK sniffing out our new stash we have secretly been releasing this month. 

We have had so many new inquiries from stockists all over the world too this month that every day there are emails asking about how to get PaperArtsy into their shops. It's very exciting, even after 10 years, to be constantly gaining momentum. The word is always spreading and there are constantly people new to our brand just finding out about us. 

This week, finally, the thousands of paint bottles/ caps arrived (if you follow me on twitter you will know that paint demand has been so high we almost ran out of vessels - the ordering cycle for bespoke bottles in almost 3 months, so to judge when you will need new stock when sales are booming month on month is not easy)....and we have so much paint ready to go into bottles Mr PA is being kept well busy with his elf-paint -assistants!

Our neice who's been staying here since start of summer got a great job up London, and a house-share to boot so she's moved out (we miss her already)....Miss na na na na 19 has gone up to spend a few days with her BF and meet his family ...so we are down by 2 very competent munchkins and another is at Reading Fest this weekend.....Miss 17-next-week just got her GCSE results, and she was offered places at 2 6th forms for next year, so she is thrilled...with all this going on the mini munchkins have been bribed into working (instead of sitting on their butts, or relaxing in the pool at Costa-Del-PAHQ), and they have done quite well as rope-ins for a couple of days! But, I am not getting through any 'extra' bits on my lists! So starting to panic about how the time just disappears.

Never, mind, it's a bank holiday, so I have a spare catch up day ...although we do have a (shhhh a friend's -BIG Five - oh) birthday party to go to that I am immensely looking forward to on Monday (...all our friends are turning Five-OH....) and somehow I want to fit in a trip to the Brentwood Antique show that is on this weekend...and there is the small matter of #3UP entries that are now pouring in thick and fast....which desperately need my attention.... I'm not panicking! YET! ...and I really wanted to pop over to France for a day or 2 the last couple of weeks...what is going on!!!

And ...breathe....

So....I am quite enjoying this Saturday video lark, and today this is another technique that opens a LOT of (somewhat shiny) doors. So let me explain this week's technique. Well, to be fair, its not rocket science, and I'm sure many of you paint-genies sussed it already....we are mixing bespoke Metallic Paint.

On the face of it, the Old Gold and Pewter paints might seem to be a bit boring. The gold is quite a muddy antique gold, not gonna lie, it looks particularly cack while wet, but once dry, it's a fabulous gold, not brass, but a nice vintage antique colour, old gold. The pewter is similar, a bit aged looking, not really shiny and bright, so for me these are really great under crackle glaze with black on top. 

However, that's not the only think you can do with them!! At Stevenage I lifted the lid on what you might enjoy doing with these when you add your translucent paints to them!!

And that is what today's video is all about. The video is very basic, showing how to mix the colours, and then I paint them out side by side so you can make an easy comparison, but once the video stopped rolling, I quickly used up my paints to knock up these backgrounds (below) that i have flower-power plans for!

This one is easy for the blu bits...

those are pewter/ inky pool

the red is actually more plum...so into the inky pool mix above I added some blood orange actually Claret would probably have been better with hindsight, to get plum tones. I had a bit of left over from the greeny mix (sample 3 below) and slapped that on too.

Sample 1: Blue-Plum

Next up, 
the light areas are Old Gold/ Pumpkin Soup, 
the warmer bits are Old Gold/ Smoked Paprika/ Blood Orange 
and the rest is Old Gold/ French Roast....yes you read that right!

Sample 2: Warm Golds

Greeny-purples next

eggplant/pewter for the purple metallic sections 

and inky pool/ zesty zing/ pewter (makes a nice green-blue) 

with a smattering of pewter only on top in a few places to blend (as you know metallics not the easiest thing to photograph!) - you'll just have to try it yourself! 

Sample 3: Green-Purple

The opacity is determined by how many layers you apply, where you can see the words there is only 1-2 layers, where there is no text visible, i had 3 or more coats of paint.

Sample 4: Copper-Green

Now this one the picture really is not a great indication of what I am seeing in real life. In reality it is a lot less red at the corners, and a lot more green. It looks like aged cooper. patina style. It's gorgeous.

I used Green Olives/ Old Gold
Smoked Paprika/Old Gold
Then Streaks of straight up Old Gold to blend

So hop on over to YouTube to watch the video or click play below, it's only 10 mins, so you don't need to grab a cuppa ! But you might also want to grab your metallic paints and some translucent paints and start playing! 

Don't forget there is still time to enter this week's challenge here ! Closes Sunday at noon.