2023 Topic 11: Monochrome {by Asia Marquet} with Purple & Seth Apter stamps

Hi everyone,

It's Asia here with you today (Lemon Creation Art) here with you today.

I would like toshow yçou how I created an art journal page on black background. We do not usually use black papers for our projects, but lately I got to loke creating on black and playing with opaque colours. Some of these colours look better then others on the black background and I am always happy to experiment!  That's why the topic Monochrome spoke to me straight away. PaperArtsy has so many opaque acrylics, which are just perfect for it. Plus, there is an addition of Topography theme this quarter and I am crazy about letters and numbers! In all- just a perfect theme for me.

Today I am going to show you some of the opaque purple colors, make an art journal page perfect for beginners, but with some cool technique for advanced artists as well and  tell you about the common problems when working on a black paper.

Here are the supplies I will be using today, but let me first start with the paints and my black paper.

The first thing while working on a black paper is to choose well your colours (in my case one colour, so it was even more important to choose well). Why I choose purple? I love purples and I have to say that PaperArtsy has a lot of opaque purples, so it was just a question of finding one and get the most of it.

To this end I decided to do the swatches and I strongly advise you to do the same when working on black paper. As you know  the colors will look differently on black and a lot of them will not even be visible. That's why the opacity of colours is so important here- the more opaque colour, the better will be visible on black paper. So chose wisely and you will create surely a beautiful art!

Out of all thses beautiful purples I decided to go with Berry Nice Fresco Finish Acrylic- I love this particular shade of purple and I found it really opaque and, well, sort of cute :) Cute goes nicely with grunge projects. It will soften the effect of grunge a little and as it is quite bright, it will be a good contrast to black. I will also add a little bit of white with Snowflake Fresco Finish Acrylic.

Of course I can't live without some beautiful stamping and my choice fell today on Seth Apter's stamps: ESA35 and ESA23- amazing choice of grunge!

For grunge project a little bit of mess is necessary. That's why I will start with some random stamping in the background. I will use parts of both stamps and for stamping I will use Snowflake Fresco Acrylic. The stamping will not be perfect, as it will be done with acrylic paint, but it will create grungy background. 

When stamping with acrylics you can either use brush to add the paint to the stamp as I did here (the stamped image will be more precise), or you can just kind of "dump" the stamp into a pool of paint and then stamp it onto the paper (image will be quite blurry and messy). One more thing you need to remember when stamping with acrylics  is to wash your stamps in the soapy water straight away, to avoid permanently damaging them.

Here are some examples of my acrylic stamping- as you can see the images are a little bit messy (what I was aiming for anyway), but also quite visible (you can still see the letters). When doing grungy stamping, you do not really need to keep your stamp on the acrylic bloc, you can just as easily keep it in your fingers and just stamp this way.

Numbers and letters are my "go to" very often when doing grungy backgrounds, so since I have in my stash another one of Seth's stamps- ESA24. I used a part of it to add more interest to the page. 

I did the same with part of his other stamp- ESA23.

If you are wandering what is missing, it's splatter, of course! I had some leftover paint and it was just enough to creat some beautiful splatter.

Now, let's move to the focal point, or rather few focal points.

 

For the focal point (points) I will be using the circle elements from Seth Apter's stamps: ESA35 and ESA23. Circles are such a beautiful form to work with and since Seth's stamps are definitely on the grunge side, they will work perfectly with my background. This time I decided thought to stamps them not on the black background, but on the background coloured in purple.

This colour- Berry Nice Fresco Finish Acrylic-  is just so amazing on the black background and so vivid!

When the background is completly dry, I will emboss it with WOW white embossing powder. The white powder will be contrasting nicely with white stamping on the background (stamping is very mat, while embossing has a glossy feel to it). Thanks to that and the stamping on the purple paper, the focal points will be well visible.

Since I was not sure which elements I will use as focal points, I stamped and embossed few of them. This way I will have a choice.

And of course the last part of this process was to fussy cut them all.

Even though I made my focal points, I was thinking that there is something missing.I wanted to add more purple paint to the page and make the focals a little bit more varied. I was not totally sure if I am making the right decision, but I decided to, once again, do some stamping with acrylic paint. This time with Berry Nice Fresco Finish Acrylic and the smallest  part of the stamp ESA35.

I think it was a good decision. The stamping worked really well and it gave a little bit of different feel to the whole project, which you will see in the close-ups. Sometimes it's really good to mix up techniques to create different layers. Here I mixed embossing and stamping with acrylics, stamping on the black background and on the purple one. These are all simple techniques, but at the end the effect is just so cool. And grungy.

Time for the nicest part of the project- putting it all together! I love this part and today was no exception. There were moments during this project when I was not so sure if all will work at the end ( too much grungy stamping in the background? Too many focal points? Not enough focal points??? ), but now, looking at the finished page in frony of me, I am trully happy.

But before this happiness happened, there were still some steps to take to finish it off.

Firstly I placed my fussy cut circles on the page and tried few arrangements until I was satisfied with it.

Of course I ended up not using all of the fussy cut elements, but it's always better to have too many, then not enough! I cut off the part of one stamped circle (it is a nice thing to add some elements coming a little bit out of the page, it gives more interest to the whole project).

A little bit of purple splatter:

 

And a little bit of white thread placed under one of the circles. Plus a glue to hold it all together.

Here is the finished page:

I do believe that when making any kind of grunge project,  you do not have to stress too much. Maybe this is why I love it so much! In this case I was happy to make it on black background,  as I feel that black gives more of this grungy feel. Plus, I had to use some kind of typography elements on the project and this is one of my all time favourite elements to go to when I am stuck with my background, or when I just fancy adding some random numbers or letters.  But as I mentioned earlier- working on black can be tricky sometimes. The choice of color  you use on the black background is very important, so is the making of swatches beforhand. You need to be sure that your colour will be visible on the paper. Opaque Fresco Fisnish Acrylics will do the job beautifully! Translucent paints won't work on black and you may also get problems with semi-opaque colours, so just make your life easy and go straight for opaque paints (PaperArtsy acrylics has the opacity of colors mentioned on each bottle at the front, so you can be sure what you are using).  

The most difficult part for me while making this project (and any other project on black background) was taking photos. My black art journal paper has a mat finish to it and even despite that a lot of my pics finished in the bin! But it is a question of habbit and I am getting better when taking photos (at least I hope so!). Also, in the period of the year when Sun is nowhere to be seen, working with black paper could be difficult. So do not be afraid to turn the page around, turn the light around and take few pictures, just  to be sure you going to get at least one which is beautiful. I can tell you honestly- it's worth it!  Despite all of this small issues, black journal pages are so beautiful and fun to make!

So just get a piece of black paper, create and share with us your amazing makes!

Happy crafting!

Asia

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2023 Topic 8 : Master Wheel - Double split complementary shade {by Floss Nicholls} with Seth Apter stamps

Hi everyone

It's Floss with you here with you today.

I've been having fun playing in my journal with double split complementary colours this week using the 2023 Topic 8 colour combo: Aqua Duck Egg FF199, Candy Floss FF70, Butter FF129 and adding Little Black Dress FF19 to gain shades of the of the many combinations on the colour wheel.  With this quarter's transparency theme in mind I decided to use apertures through the page as there's nothing more transparent than an open window and so I created lots of holes to peek through. I really had to be mindful where I placed designs so that they'd work over two pages...here's how I got on...

Naturally, it's difficult to show all four of the pages I created in one 'finished project photo' when working in a journal, so let me explain what I did and why I did it, working up to showing you the outcomes over four pages...

I was excited to start using the new Seth Apter mini stamps EM73 and EM79 along with his ESA35 stamp set, EM52 and the EM40 stamps as I knew that I could create some great textures and features with these.

Before I started working in my journal I needed to look at what this topics colours; butter, aqua duck egg and candy floss would make when mixed together to choose which combination I would use.

I liked the option of the double split complimentary selection as I could add more interest by having more colours involved that I knew would work well together having both impact and subtlety. I chose number 6 on my wheel as the base colour and matched it up with the two segments either side of it's direct opposite. The diagram below in the middle picture of the top row will show my choice.

A more detailed explanation of the double-split complementary colour wheel and the benefits of using this selection written by Keren Baker can be seen either here... 2022 Topic #8: Split complementary or also beautifully explained by Dounia Large here 2023 Topic 08: Master Colour Wheel - Topic Introduction. Both are well worth a read.

Having selected my colours from the colour wheel, I then needed to mix them into another wheel using different amounts of little black dress FF19 to create shades of each of the colours.  I found this exercise very therapeutic and would recommend doing this if you ever lose your creative spark and need to get back into your art but don't know what to do. 

I always mix an equal amount of all three colours together when I create my colour wheel to create what can be a more muddy shade. This mix can be seen below on the right hand image with 1+5+9 written inside the box.  I find it useful to do this as I feel that the 'total mixed colour' tends to harmonise a piece of art by pulling all the colours together .

I was choosing between split complementary...

...and double-split complementary, which as you know I went ahead with...

Breaking an empty page is often considered to be one of the hardest thing to do when creating art and so I used ESA35 and a WOW clear matt embossing powder to put some basic transparent texture onto the double page spread.

Then I used a dry sponge to add my first colour onto the double spread; I used the tertiary No8 segment without black for the colour base. I added texture using the dots from stamp set ESA35 using the same colour but with Little Black Dress to add a contrast with it's darker shade. Now the first page was underway...time to turn it over to prepare the other double spread.

I used the section 3 toned mix for the base colour of this double spread.  As you know, I like to add plenty of textures into my art and so I used EM79 and Rangers distress archival ink in Hickory smoke over the other journal spread to add interest to a flat page. Note that I am now going to be working over two spreads simultaneously. 

 

I started laying out some of the rubber stamps and drew rough circles to mark where I was going to carefully cut my apertures out using a scalpel and a cutting mat between the pages.

Keeping the colour wheel to hand, I stamped a whole batch of tissue papers with a selection of the stamps I was using to give me plenty of choice when it came to adding details. (It also gives me plenty of fodder to play with at a later date too!) I painted the reverse of the tissue paper in some areas making sure that my paint mixes matched those on my wheel.

I also painted some block colours and stamped over them using the same double-split complementary colours and stamp sets.

 

Drawing through the holes onto the printed coloured paper allowed me to get the exact shapes I needed.  I use a Pilot Frixion pen to do this as it can be erased easily by gently heating it gently with a heat gun or hair dryer which is much quicker and less damaging to the surface than an eraser and pencil.

Using the apertures from the page that closes over this place your designs and check to see whether they show what you'd like to see through the holes.  I like to hide some of the designs so that both pages are not in replica. 

Having seen how the colours work together through the holes, I thought that I'd like to bring more detail and colour onto the page and so using the Frixion pen once more I traced through the hole to match the opening of the aperture then rough cut a ring to edge finish the hole in another shade.

Now that I had most of the pieces glued into place I wanted to bring it all together.  At this stage I thought a lot of the designs were just floating on the page and it needed tying together.

Whilst I was deciding what detail to add to the pages, I used a scrap piece of paper between the pages so that I could ink some of the apertures that did not have a coloured ring around them. This gave a little more definition and contrast.

Using the little stitches stamp from ESA35 and Rangers distress archival ink in Hickory smoke I added the little crosses to the first page spread...

 

and to the second page spread along with the dots on line stamp from the same ESA35 set using a darker shade from segment 3 of the colour wheel. These were my final outcomes...

Lifting the page slightly will show any areas that need trimming off to make the apertures neater...

I especially enjoyed the challenge of setting the designs behind the apertures as well as at the same time being able to see elements of it peeking through.  I still have not decided if this is 'done' yet.  I think I may revisit it to add some hand stitching to accentuate some of the little crosses but I would need to be super careful with the reverse of the page with the apertures cut out...

It was a fun project to do and colour mixing is always interesting with the amount of colours you can make using just 3 paints...or in this case four.  I hope this has inspired you to cut holes out of your pages and reach for some of your favourite stamps to peep through them!

Until next time, enjoy your creative time

Love

Floss x x x 

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I have several classes going on throughout August and Sept including a mixed media creative wellness tag day on the August bank holiday monday especially for those of you who work hard all week and don't get much time off for weekday classes. (in person in East Sussex UK)

If you need to plan ahead...then I have two full day mixed media classes running back to back on 31.10.23 and 01.11.23...check the website to see the difference between the two days.