2017 #3 Buddleia & Butterflies {by Kay Carley}

2017 Topic 3: Paint and Infusions

In this post Kay Carley offers a detailed insight into how she works on one layer. Smooth transitions between Fresco Paints and Dye Infusions allow her to juggle the effects until she is happy with the balance. Don't forget the white pen at the end, and you'll have a masterpiece too! 

Hi everyone Kay Carley here.

Lovely to be here on the PA blog tonight. I've chosen to share with you a technique of combining Infusions with Fresco Finish paint to give beautiful textured effects for bold, open type flowers. 

I first experimented with this combination about a year ago using my EKC02 stamp set as this gave my allium flowers (contained in this set) a fab background to build upon. So when I was designing EKC05 I was already picturing using this technique again as I feel that it works best when you don't have a constricting outside line. 

The additional use of Infusions as my 'first layer' over the paint to begin building up the colours and texture of my flowers, is an interesting way to start to build these flowers as the Infusions give a beautiful textured and multi-coloured first layer without any harsh edges due to the dye stain contained within these fabulous bottles.

I came out of my 'comfort zone' for this card as I tend to stick mainly with tone-on-tone colouring when combining Infusions with Fresco Finish paint but as you can see I decided to go with a vibrant colour scheme in order to challenge myself!

As I began my panel I still chose to go with tone on tone (using my BRAND NEW stencil that will be available soon) as I didn't want my background to become overpowering.

This is what I had in mind when I designed the sprigs of leaves on this stamp set - being able to join them up to make different leafy compositions depending on the size of project.

By sponging rough flower head shapes in the area where I'm going to stamp the flower heads enables me to begin the building up of the multi-layered flower. Here I chose to go with a dark colour first (Space Cadet) as a 'shadow' to stand the flower out from the background and then sponged Snowflake in the middle.

Once you start to add some stamping it begins to make a bit more sense. If the stems of the flowers aren't long enough just take a black multi-liner and elongate them! You can see that I also stamped some of those swirls joining some of them up to give a different look.

This was the scary bit for me as I so wanted to go with Sleight Blue Infusions as this would have kept it tone-on-tone but instead I went with Raspberry - eeeeeekkkkkk!!! The method I used was to sprinkle the Infusions, spritz with water, very lightly dab up excess water with kitchen towel and dry with a heat gun.

Of course the beauty of using Fresco Finish paints with the Infusions is that the paints are opaque so once you start to add different colours over the top it totally changes the look of the flower heads. I used Lake Wanaka, Dolly Mix, Orchid and Snowflake for the flower heads and Chartreuse, Hey Pesto, Space Cadet and Beach Hut for the stems and leaves.

I often like to add white into my projects and you will find that when painting over the Infusions that the dye pigment will run into the acrylic paint and tint it which I really like as it gives a beautiful soft appearance. You can always add a second layer of Snowflake to make it a little whiter if you so wish.

Adding white pen makes such a difference as it can really make things pop. I had felt that the leaves and stems were too dark but adding some detail with white pen totally transformed them.

For me the real beauty of using Infusions with Fresco Finish acrylic paint is that you can simply wipe away any of the Infusion colour that you don't want or make it softer! 3D'ing the butterflies also adds some dimension to the card. These were painted with Zesty Zing, Snowflake, Beach Hut, Space Cadet, Bougainvillea and French Roast.

You might have noticed that upon completing my card I had decided that I didn't like the 'word panel' being the same as the flower heads with the shadow and a lighter centre so I took the decision to block out the word panel with Antarctic (the background colour) and re-stamp the words which I liked better! As well as wiping away some of the Raspberry Infusions from the background area I also very lightly sponged some Antarctic Fresco Finish around the flowers just to soften the transition between the flower heads themselves and the background as I felt that the shadowing that I had previously created with Space Cadet was too harsh! Me being me, I am NEVER satisfied and can tweak things for hours!!!! However I hope that this has made you want to try combining Infusions and Fresco Finish paint to create textured flowers in this way. I'd love to see what colour schemes you come up with!!

Love Kay xx

Blog: kaycarley.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook: facebook.com/kaycarley.designer
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It is fabulous to see your tweaking though Kay, often those final finishing touches are what bring a piece into its final glorious state, and your bold us of colour really offers some depth to the flowers. I really enjoyed watching this come together! ~ Leandra

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