2019 #8 Put a Brush on it: Brush-bound notebook with EKD {by Dounia Large}

2019 Topic 8: Put a Brush On It

Here we are at the last post of this topic, and Dounia has created a lovely book-spine with her paintbrushes! Great idea! ~Leandra.

Hi everyone, it's Dounia with you today, and I'd like to share with you nice way to recycle your old paint brushes into the spine of a notebook!

I must admit have ruined a few paint brushes with glue or insufficient washing. This Topic was a great opportunity to redeem them (and myself!) through another love of mine: notebook making!

I was inspired to use the brushes as a spine by classic book binding techniques that use thin sticks as hinges or anchors. I wanted a colorful and hand-drawn theme to go with the brushes and Kim Dellow's style is perfect for what I had in mind! In the EKD02 plate, the graphic plants are full of possibilities and the little birds are so cute! Also I am a fan of clouds so I didn't hesitate long...

The line art of these stamps make sprucing up the pages of the notebook quick and easy, without making them too busy. The brushes provide a spine for the booklets with a very easy sewing pattern.

The booklets are assembled by weaving ribbons around the brushes in between the binding stitches. It can easily be done in an pattern (two contrasting colours would look great!) but I chose to randomly use a variety of colours and textures to go with the quirky handmade feel.

With this technique both sides of the binding are pretty. A clear advantage here as the spine is visible inside in between booklets!

For sturdy covers, able trap and hide the ends of the ribbons, I used Heavy Smoothy. I regularly use Fresco Acrylic paints for some background stamping before applying Infusions as it creates a lovely and subtle resist effect. I love the steaky effect achieved when Infusions are "activated" with a babywipe. With 2-3 colours it also makes gradients easy!

Using a limited number of stamps made it easy to give the whole project cohesion without too much planning. I really love this branch with fruits so I made it the star of the first page.

For the covers, the guests of honor could only be the birdies! With a tonal background, color contrast was the way to make them pop. Creating a focal point via a cut-out is certainly an oldy but I love it so...

I didn't go all out for the back cover but I still think the contrast birdies and white highlights do the job!

I think keeping the covers relatively toned-down colourwise really bring out the bright ribbons and brushes, which are supposed to be the focus of this project after all!

This project ended up pretty involved but the binding technique itself is quite simple and very versatile. From a single card to a full notebook with ribbons, any size is possible. The brushes are both useful and decorative and can be a nice detail in a gift for a fellow crafter (or for yourself!). So don't hesitate and give a new purpose to your old brushes!

Stay crafty!
Dounia x

2019 #8 Put a Brush on it: Literally with JoFY {by Gabrielle Price}

2019 Topic 8: Put a Brush On It

Cracked paint, texture, rust and shades of patina. Sounds like the perfect combination to me! I'm sure you'll agree! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Gabrielle from Crafty Thoughts with you today, and I'd like to share with you two projects that took the brief very literally!

I have been reading a fascinating book about Monet's work and love his use of colours. I wanted to create using his colour palette and sense of texture - and what better way to do this than with Fresco paints!

I 'borrowed' a very old paintbrush from my dad and knew from the wear on the handle that I was going to turn it into a flower stem. When the basic background was in place I used finger painting to add the next layers - well, I did have a big brush I was going to put on it as a focal point! 

Building layers and layers of paint and bringing the Grunge Paste stencilling (PS108) to the fore, or knocking them back, was huge fun. Fresco Paints can be found here, or source your local supplier from any 'new product' announcement here on the PaperArtsy Blog.

I used a tip from Seth Apter and started with a black base, building to a lighter finish. I normally find I sand my work at some point so I actually put my sander in a box so I wasn't tempted on this project! 

The background stamp was from JOFY25 and the flower head was made from JOFY09.

I stencilled the leaves (PS023) and then added lots of small layers of paint (Limelight, Hey Pesto and Granny Smith) to add shadows and highlights.

I then used the same wonderful colours JOFY09 stamps and stencil to create a new spread in my flashcard book (if you look carefully you can still see the words!) to create a vintage flower garden. I painted the flowers with the thinest paintbrush in the world (well, in my studio!)

I know we've encouraged you in this topic to use paintbrushes with the fabulous Fresco Acrylic Paints but why not have a go using your fingers to paint? Especially if you have Grunge Paste details as it allows you get some really cool effects! Oh! And you don't have to wash your brushes afterwards!

Thank you for joining me!
Gabrielle

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2019 #8 Put a Brush on it: Puddles of Paint with JoFY {by Alison Bomber}

2019 Topic 8: Put a Brush On It

Beautiful dripping brushes creating painty puddles is a real delight from Alison as she takes us through the process from concept to reality.

Hi everyone, it's Alison here from Words and Pictures here with you today, and I'd like to share with you some Puddles of Paint.

Who knows where creative ideas spring from?  And sometimes I slightly wish they wouldn't !  When one of those ideas pops into your head that seems really great, but then you realise you're going to have to try to turn it into reality... well, this was one of those.  But I am glad it did pop up, because I enjoyed the challenge and I'm so happy with the end result.

I loved Leandra's "Put a Brush on it" theme, and originally envisaged all sorts of vintage layering and detail.  But then I happened to glance at the new JOFY stamps and a whole other idea popped up - quite a long way from my vintage comfort zone.

I immediately saw those fabulous layered splodges as puddles of paint, spreading out onto a canvas.

And above all, my imagination saw the paint itself dripping from the brush to create the swirling puddles on the canvas...

... as though you'd just laid down the brush for a moment to do something else, and the paint decided to create some art all by itself.  Now all I had to do was make it happen in real life.

I've used not only the large splodges from JOFY 75, but also the flower heads from the stem on the right to create my puddles.

I stamped the puddles onto plain card and had a wonderful time layering up paint colours and white pen doodling.

There are lots of paint colours involved from the Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic range - opaque, semi-opaque and transparent, but all applied in watery washes to get nice layered shades.  Rather than list them all, it's probably simplest if I just show you the photos of the bottles I had lined up on the craft table!

I gesso'd a couple of very cheap paintbrushes and worked out where I wanted to perch them around the rim of the reverse 12x12 canvas (also gesso'd). I cut out my puddles and arranged them so that they could be "dripped into" by the brushes.

All that got glued down and while the glue was drying I started experimenting with various mediums to see how I could create my dripping paint. I'd originally thought of paperclay or Fimo, but in the end I worked with some heavy semi-gloss gel medium.

That meant I could brush it onto the bristles to get some texture like real paint, and then form the columns of paint "pouring" onto the canvas so that it really looked like a continuous stream.

I left my "paint" to dry overnight, so that it would be fully set. The next day, according to where it "landed" in the splodge, I painted my dripping paint the right colour to match the puddle area it was pouring into.

I toyed with the idea of adding a gloss glaze finish to the paint puddles, so that they would look as though they were still slightly wet paint...

... but the semi-gloss of the medium already gives the paint on the brushes a slight shine, so in the end I went with adding some glassy bubbles to catch the light instead. I think it somehow tricks the eye into believing there's a glossy wetness to the whole piece.

I added the words freehand. I should just have gone straight to the Copic marker in bold turquoise, rather than going with a fine pen version first, but I wasn't quite brave enough. Ah well, maybe next time!

And the words themselves formed from that first idea of the paint creating art by itself as it drips from the brushes. Who ever thought that watching paint dry was boring anyway?!

It's a much cleaner, fresher look than is usual for me, but I really like it. There's something so summery and light about the blue, green and white, and I love the light on the glass and the shadows of the brushes creating lots of depth.

I'll admit it was a bit sticky and fiddly moulding the gel medium, but so worth it.  I couldn't be happier with my flowing paint pouring from the paintbrushes to create the puddles of paint. I hope you'll be inspired to play with incorporating your paintbrushes into your projects as well as using them as tools. 

Thanks so much for stopping by to watch the paint dry with me. I hope you had as much fun as I did!
Alison x

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2019 #8 Put a Brush on it: Brush Doll with EAB {by Etsuko Noguchi}

2019 Topic 8: Put a Brush On It

I love how in this post Etsuko has totally transformed a brush into a 'doll' The bristles look like her skirt/legs an there's a wonderful transfer technique in the mix too, it is fabulous! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Etsuko My Favorite Things with you today, and I'd like to share with you Brush Doll using Alison Bomber 'Words and Pictures' fabulous new stamp set.

I chosen the wonderful love quote from 'Wuthering Heights' of her love stamps edition. I made the doll that Catherine's lonely face and she drift to the moors with her wings.
Jane Eyre, Wuthering Height and La Petite Fadette were my favorite books in my early teens, and always imagined the scenery of the scene as there were no forests and plains near us.

At first I prepared 2inches painting brush and Heavy Gray White Board for the doll body and dress.

Next I stamped by Ink the Dog Mini10 on Smoothy Heavy White Card and colored the doll's face. Then I scanned and printed it.

I used the Clear Tar Gel to the printed doll face for transfer and left it overnight.

When Gel dried the face transferred to a book paper. ---Sorry this book paper was not from Wuthering Heights.

I usually use some design paper for a doll dress, but this time I used PaperArtsy stamps and Fresco paints to make collage. All papers was brushed brayered and stamped.  This is using Double Denim, Glacier Ice and Snowflake Fresco paints on the Smoothy Regular White Card. These stamps from Courthney's new stamps ECF06.

I made wings and upper part of dress from this paper.

This paper using Mud Splat, Eggshell and Steel Gray Fresco paint, and ECF04 Courthney stamp.

This paper was sober when it was put together, so I used a stencil and added Vanilla Fresco color.

Used Blue Lagoon, Smurf and Glass Blue Fresco paints.

This bottom of the dress paper, I want need some texture but not much, so i used Seth's baked texture and some embossing powder.

I added wonderful love quote from EAB09 by new Alison's stamp, used black embossing powder onto the painted Glacier Ice Smoothy Card. I cut it and put on the top of the dress and this is from the bottom of her heart.

Finally I added red heart and flower hair ornament to her and hanging wire.
This is a finished Catherine Doll. I made very simply and few steps. I think that anyone can easily and fun to make various your own Brush Dolls.
Please try and enjoy.

Thank you so much for visiting.
Etsuko xxx

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