Hi everyone! It's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today playing with Mattints. Though I tried to decide a direction for my project for this post up front, I learned the importance of just playing around with a new product to get the feel for it. My experimentation with Mattints taught me how to use and not use the product and though my project went in a completely different direction than my original idea, I'm quite pleased with this piece and how it's a reflection of that playful experimentation. I hope you'll enjoy seeing what I've learned...
The part that I found most rewarding was the buildup of layers through this process and I'm fascinated that the paper I made looks so much like a layered gel print, without any printing involved!
I was really excited to pair some of the new brighter shades of Mattints with some of my PaperArtsy stamp sets by Tracy Scott. Along the way I picked some coordinating colors of Fresco Chalk Acrylics and really love how they compliment one another in the layering process.
My first idea didn't work out for me, but I'm sharing how I worked through that process to get to my finished journal page. Originally, I was going to create some funky backgrounds and use Tracy's new mushroom stamps as my focal image. So I turned to Tracy's Printed Tissue (PT04) to create some "ground cover" from the wavy lines from the first woman's head covering. I thought I'd create a one sheet wonder and cut it into fourths. I adhered the torn Printed Tissue to porous paper using PaperArtsy Matte Glaze, which I thought might be similar in texture to the Mattints.
I wanted to experiment with different effects using Mattints, so I thought I'd see if it absorbed differently over PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics as opposed to the porous paper. I brayered Cloud 9 in loose streaks along the middle of the paper.
I didn't notice a significant difference but like texture peeping through the Mattints in Squeezed (orange - in the center of the paper). I brayered an ombre pattern using Squeezed in the center, The Pink on each side of that and Jam on the ends over the tissue. You may think the white streaks are from the Cloud 9, but they are where I had adhered book pages with Matte Glaze and brayered over it too soon and the paper lifted onto my brayer. I really liked the streaks and left them that way, but glued the tinted book page back in other places later.
My next test was to try Mattints in Jam on the gel plate. I used a small circle plate by Gel Press that's about 3" wide and tried to brayer the Mattints, but this did not work at all, due to the watery consistency of the product. To add some contrast to my background and to show a comparison, I printed with Fresco Chalk Acrylic in Zesty Zing instead. Zesty Zing is a transparent Fresco paint and you can clearly see the difference. The Mattints are muted, whereas the transparent Fresco is much more intense. It is noticeably thicker in texture and works for gel printing.
Here is my flipping point, I cut apart the panel and decided the background scenes weren't what I wanted for the Tracy Scott mushroom stamp project and I wanted to experiment further with layers in the backgrounds...
Continuing on, I tested stamping with Mattints. I brayered some onto my mini gel plate and then dipped one of the awesome pattern stamps from Tracy's fabulous new background set 85 (TS085) into the "ink pad" of Mattints. The result is subtle and there was pooling around the image, which I think is super cool. It dried perfectly matte, which was great!
I then decided to darken each section with another layer of color. Notice how rich the Zesty Zing topped panel is compared to the twice-tinted Mattints panels. I gave each panel a splash of its coordinating color and could barely splash paint straight from the Fresco bottle.
Next I had one more failed experiment. I tried stamping in Distress Oxides over the panels and it would not dry, luckily I was able to wipe it off completely with a damp cloth after several attempts at heat setting. I pulled out some permanent ink pads and did some stamping and also a couple more colors of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics, Electric Violet and Cerise. These coordinated beautifully.
I finally figured out what I would do with these pieces, though not without a little panic, lol! I thought they would be so beautiful in my flower journal, which is about 8x8" square. You can see other pages from the journal HERE. My previous pages have a gel print base and I thought these panels would work great, but the size was off. I decided I could punch a repeat pattern, only I didn't want to use any of the punches I actually have, ha ha! So I cut a pattern and used it to trace these hand cut scallops onto my pieces. I arranged them and started in the center gluing down each piece with a glue stick.
Finally, things were coming together for me! :)
I was really happy with my finished background and decided to layer a focal image with it. I reached for Tracy's gorgeous butterfly stamp set 39 (TS039). I watercolored the image partially using brush markers, then went over the marker work with a coordinating glaze of Mattints so it would harmonize the color to the background.
I added a bit of doodling around the scallops and some hand lettering, since this will go in my art journal. I like that small personal touch.
In my last post and first experiment with Mattints, I focused on their glue properties. Check that out HERE. It was great testing out some other ideas in a completely different style for this spread. Which is my favorite? It's hard to tell, but I'm glad to have built up a variety of techniques on which to expound. Make sure to browse the blog through this topic for more ideas from our bloggers. xx, Autumn
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