Sunday 10 March 2024

2024 Topic 2 : Mattints {on the PaperArtsy Blog} Topic Introduction

Hi everyone, Leandra here to talk about TINTS, especially our new addition to the PaperArtsy colour family - Mattints.

A 'tint' is a pale tinge of colour, just a hint.

Matte is the finish of a surface, compared to a gloss or satin finish, matte offers the lowest light reflection. A sealed surface will look natural, unsealed.

Therefore, PaperArtsy Mattints are a sealant, totally transparent tinted layer (and adhesive) with a matte finish and a slight hint of colour.

Topic 2 of 2024 is all about Mattints over on the PaperArtsy Blog ..... and we thought now that we have 8 Mattint colours, this was a great time to let our bloggers explore the possibilities with this new colour product.

Glazed

But first, a reminder that the current theme is GLAZED. We have a theme that arches over a few topics, and the current theme is 'GLAZED'. Here are just a few ideas for you linked to the term ...


As you can see, 'glaze' infers the idea of SHINY, glossy surfaces. Whether it is a ceramic coat, or a window, a varnish on a painting, piece of jewellery that might have a resin coating or a laminated surface ...glazes generally are visible, and this concept is one we are challenging our bloggers to incorporate into the posts alongside the current topic of Mattints. 

Mattints

Mattints were designed to be the perfect partner for Infusions and Printed Tissue Paper. If you have followed our designer Raquel, aka Scrapcosy, you will know she is an expert with Infusions, and often uses our existing 3 Glazes : Matte, Satin, Gloss mixed into infusions for various techniques, if you would like to read more about those ideas, head over to her YouTube here.

She introduces us to Mattints and her printed tissue in this video


In November 2023, we introduced you to  our first 4 Mattints: Shark, Glow, Fern and Nutty. These are pretty muted colours (Raquel's favourites). 
The blog post announcing these is here. You can see the colours below ...


Glow is a gorgeous ochre yellow that as a primary colour you might find super useful as a mixer with other Mattints. It can look amazing when layered over any other colour or fresco to add warmth.


In this sample, Glow was applied to both sides of the Serh Apter 'Your Story' section of Printed Tissue. It adds a warm layer to the piece, and still allows deatils of the layers below to be seen.


Nutty is a warm brown. If you mix Nutty and Glow, you will create the perfect Sepia tone Nutty we love to add shadows and depth.


In the sample below, Nutty was used to tint the 'stripes' of this background, to create a wallpaper effect. 


Fern is a super nice green, again, add Glow to make it more Olive green, or knock it back with Nutty, or just layer Nutty over Fern, vice versa to build depth, shading and so on.


Shark is a super useful Grey blue. Add Glow to this and of course you will make a green, it will be different to Fern! And if you add Shark to Fern you will create an interesting Blue-Green colour.


As Mattints are totally transparent, when you layer colours, you will discover interesting effects. 

It is possible to add a Mattint to Printed Tissue. If you want the boldest colour possible, apply a generous layer to both sides, then with each additional application you will build depth. You can also use the Mattint as an adhesive, so once saturated, then placed onto white card you will get quite a strong version of each colour. See below.


Mattints will also gather in the dippy areas of texture. Below you can see Grunge Paste has been stamped into while wet, and then the Mattints applied on top, the finish is Matte, but the tint looks much more concentrated in the crevices.


In this sample Mattints have been mixed into a range of Fresco Chalk Paints. The left column shows the paints in their pure form (Sand, Haystack etc).

As you move across to the right, you can see how the various colours change when mixed with each of the Matte tints. It is nice to know that despite the tint being quite subtle, you can still edit a paint into a revised colour with Mattints. This of course offers you increased colour options.


In this sample Mattints have been mixed into Infusions .. again, a range of colours ensue.



Image Transfer
This technique is often really successful when you use a runny glue because it grab nicely to the printed ink, and of course Mattints are a runny glue. Here are a couple of examples by Mags Woodcock



February 2024 we added another 4 colours to the Mattint range, this time we wanted to go brighter, and so we added Jam, Squeezed, Dragonfly and The Pink. You can see the blog post here with more information.


Jam is a beautiful Blackcurrant-ish purple, gorgeous with all the blues, and ideal for berries.


Here you can see all 8 Mattints, layered, blended and mixed on Alison Bomber Printed Tissue.


Squeezed is a nice rustic orange, not too bright but a super contrast to both Shark and Dragonfly. And of course amazing with Pink and Purple too!


In the sample below, Squeezed was used through a stencil, stamped with numbers and as a block brayered on a gel plate. 


Dragonfly is a bright, pretty blue and a super useful primary colour so perfect for mixing. 


You can see it through the stencil lower right on this sample...


And also upper left corner direct to white paper, but a bit more subtle on the black Printed Tissue wings.


Finally The Pink is a stunning Hot Pink, again great to mix into other colours.


I love how The Pink looks as a shadow on this Tracy Scott Printed Tissue face. Along with glow, the face was brought to life, meanwhile Dragonfly was used on the other side and many layers of Squeezed and glow on the flowers.. 


The transparency of these tints makes them perfect for adding colour to stamped images without compromising the intensity of the black inked image.


If Mattints are added to Printed tissue, then to white card, when the layers overlap you will create new colours due the the transparent nature of the colours


I particularly love this effect on the head below - where the glow and Dragonfly overlap you get a green section.


If you would like to see an in depth demonstration of the features mentioned above, then head to our Facebook community PaperArtsy People where Leandra did an in depth demo using all 8 Mattints and showing you how to tint a Printed Tissue face with a mixture of Fresco and Mattints. You can find it here

We hope you will join us over the next few weeks as our bloggers start to explore how Mattints can be used in mixed media art in all manner of ways.

No comments: