2019 #3 Mail Art: Authentic Mail with ESC {by Jennie Atkinson}

2019 Topic 3: Mail Art

We have an extremely elegant envelope tonight that involves a masterclass in masking! Jennie has created a beautiful vintage inspired piece of art with lots of super helpful tips on masking,this is a great way to create your own collage of images, and the scripts help it all hang together beautifully ~ Leandra.

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live The Dream) here sharing something quite new to me. I have always admired the Mail Art I have seen on Pinterest but never had a go myself. There are SO many individual PaperArtsy stamps that can be used for this topic and I had a job limiting myself to just a few to stamp alongside Raquel's wonderful Floral Stamps released recently.

I thought the best way of creating the Botanical style of Mail Art I wanted was to go down the route of single layer stamping. This is a technique I am turning to time and again for birthday cards to get a layered look but which can be posted at the normal postal rate! It takes time, but well worth the effort.

I couldn't just make the envelope ..... I had to make a card to go inside!

Initially I played around with some stamps to see how they would fit onto the envelope and to decide what I wanted in the foreground and what would sit behind.

I have used stamps from all of these wonderful sets:

ESC18

HP1005

Travel 4 (T4)

Words 4 (W4)

Letters 6 (L6)

Believe me I could have done a whole series of  envelopes from my PaperArtsy stamp collection!! 

I masked out an area for an address and then stamped my first two uppermost images with Potting Soil Archival Ink and then made a mask for them from A Post It Note. If you stamp your mask near the top of the pad you get a little sticky bit which helps to adhere it to your envelope.

A tip about envelopes: make sure you use one that doesn't bleed through the back (this was a linen type envelope left over from the days when I made wedding invitations) and it helps if you cut a piece of cardstock to fit inside the envelope while stamping.

As each layer was stamped there were more masks to make. The flower was too big for a Post It Note, but a thin piece of paper is all that is needed. If you make the mask from too thick paper or card it doesn't allow the next layer to be stamped close up to the image.

It is now getting even more complicated with the last of the stamping and wondering whether it will actually work!

And hey presto, it did!

I used the same stamps and technique on the back of the envelope and painted in the area of the flower with Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints: Magic Moss, Mulled Wine and Key Lime.

I wasn't very happy with the ragged edge on the Jubilee Rose stamp so tried a butterfly, but that didn't work either. So I had to resort to placing my wax seal over the space. Not quite where I intended it to go....

I did blend some brown ink around the edges to give a bit of definition.


Be warned ..... it is rather addictive!

This was a very enjoyable craft session! I think my two elderly Aunts will be delighted to get one of these envelopes through the post on their birthday - and the fact that there is a matching card inside will probably win me the brownie points for this year!  The single layer stamping using masks is so very effective and there are so many PaperArtsy stamp sets which include stamps, tickets, little postcards and handwriting that the possibilities are endless. And don't throw away the masks - you can use them over and over again.

As always, thank you for joining me!

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream

2016 #14 Mixing Ideas {by Liz Borer}

 2016 Topic 14: Colour Mixing

Hi everyone Liz here with some thoughts on colour mixing...

You may have noticed in some of my posts that I often mix colours to achieve other colours that I want. I am never fully satisfied with the range of colours in any range of paints, pencils or inks that I have and I always want more! However for some of you out there I know that mixing colours can be confusing. I hope this post will help you understand how to mix colours in an easy method.

What you might not realise is that you probably already mix colours without realising it! Every time that you apply another colour over the base colour the base colour has been changed. For example using distress inks or transparent paint over paint or paper changes the base colour, in effect mixing them to create another colour.

So, I am going to give you some ideas to start things off. If you start mixing colours why not keep a chart of the colours you mix, rather like the charts below, so you remember what you did, and how you did it.

When I am trying to get to the colour I want I start with two colours and slowly add one to the other. I recommend adding the darker colour to the lighter colour, especially if you want a pale shade, if you mix the other way round you will end up with a huge puddle of colour! 

I start with a small puddle of the paler colour and add the darker a little at a time. The real problem is that it's not possible to say exactly how much to add. The picture below shows why.

I have used Nougat instead of white so it shows up better, it's a very pale colour that I often use because it warms up the other colours I'm mixing with it. I added a drop of the darker paint at a time (pick up a blob on the end of the paintbrush) and recorded the result.

As you can see, for each colour I had to add different amounts of colour to get similar results. 

Obviously the blue is darker but even so, it's difficult to predict the proportions needed and the only way to find out is to play with colours and find out.

Here are some ideas about mixing pastel colours. In all the mixes, in all these samples, I have added a little of the darker colour at a time and recorded the result. In this picture I have used not just white but also different pale colours mixed with the same dark colour. They all create pastel colours but are all slightly different.

Notice how Nougat creates warm pinks and Hint of Mint creates almost purple pinks.

More pastels, but the last two I have used Captain Peacock with Cheesecake and Nougat. Captain Peacock is a blue-green so by adding Cheesecake the colour gets more yellow producing a warmer green.

Adding Nougat, a very slightly pink colour, has created a cooler green.

Another idea here. 

Some of the PaperArtsy paints are opaque and some transparent, so what happens when they are mixed?

This time I added the paler, more opaque colour to the transparent colour. In fact the paler the colour the more opaque it is because the more white is in the paint. It is possible to get pale colours with transparent paints by adding water to them. This is because the White of the paper shows through the paint. This creates rich glowing effects similar to Watercolour paints.

The first thing that happens if you add opaque colour to transparent is that the paint gets more opaque and sometimes looks slightly darker. After that, the paint gets more opaque and paler.

So I've looked at making colours lighter, what about darker?

Here's some ideas, the most obvious colour to add is black but this can make the new colour rather dull. Try other dark colours as shown all of which create darker colours which are often very interesting.

The bottom three mixtures show what happens when opposite colours on the colour wheel are mixed (orange / blue , red / green and yellow/ purple).

This is a very good way of darkening colours but keeping them fresh.

Here I've mixed transparent colours only. The variation in the colours is lovely, bright and clear. The variation in colours just using two colours is often amazing.

Here's another selection of transparent colour mixes.

I think the obvious lesson here is that if you want clear, bright colours, these are the mixes needed.

If you want softer, more pastel or muted colours use at least one opaque colour.

These collection of colour mixes show the wide range of colours that can be obtained when mixing colours together. 

It also shows that it's possible to create a design with only a few colours. For example, Orchid, Granny Smith and Caribbean Sea create a wide range of pinks, purples greens and browns!

This is just fantastic to see the process you use, but also the combinations are so unusual. Who would think to mix coral and limelight!! I love this system, and I can see making reference cards can be ever so useful as a reference tool! Thanks Liz, this is a brilliant! ~Leandra

We would love to see how you interpret this Colour Mixing topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #14: Colour Mixing, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Colour Mixing link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Aug 7th 2016. The winner will be announced 2  hours later at 19:00.

Peek Week {Crayons, Watercolour}

Leandra here again for another Peek Week Post

Crayons and watercolours seem to be pretty hot products at the moment, as they offer so much flexibility for the mixed-media artist. This year we have added a lot of new things to our website in this category, so I thought i'd run through the basics. I have tried to stock cheap, mid-range and high quality brands and options. Tonight we take a look at this category up close to explore colouring options surfaces to work on, brushes etc.

Water Soluble crayons - product options

So crayons are a bit odd. How IS a wax water reactive? Well, that is one for the chemists, but for all, but there must be pigment, and a binder. Some are creamier than others, and some are more easily dissolved in water.

1. Portfolio Oil pastels (Crayola) £9.95 pkt of 24,  0.50p each

Student grade product, pigmentation and blendabililty varies from colour to colour, yellow, orange, reds, pinks seem to perform wonderfully, blues/purples are less pigmented and harder to blend out, some colours are a bit naff, a very good starter set.

2. Neocolour (Caran D'Ache), £12.00 Tin of 10, £1.20ea
Very similar to the above, more expensive, pigmentation more consistent, nice range of colours, cute tin, overall slightly creamier.

3. Slick Stix (Crayola) £12.95 pkt of 12, £1.08ea
Super-Creamy, really pigmented, easy to blend. 2 metallics included. Nice colour range, easy to make any colour of the rainbow.

3. Distress Crayons (Ranger Industries), £10.95 pkt of 6, £1.82ea
Matches the distress palette of colours, creamy, well pigmented, a bit crumbly when applied, smallest pen/ stick size, probably 1/2 or 1/3 of the slick stick in actual product to use.

4. Gelatos (Faber Castell), £20.50 pkt of 15, £1.35 ea
Pigment varies colour to colour, lipstick style container, very little permanence once dry. Spray fixative required, or combine/ activate with Gum Arabic or glaze to help permanence.
{NB we are not selling these at present, as the price from kit to kit style varies and single colours not easy to source of newer shades, larger kits very expensive}

More Crayon Information:
(A) Pinterest: For more examples of crayons and ideas, go here to my Pinterest Page. 

(B) Videos: Videos listed below.

(C) PaperArtsy Blog: use the search bar at the top of the blog, type in Distress crayons, Slick Stix, Portfolio Oil pastels etc and posts using those products will pop up. Idea posts below.

MY TECHNIQUE TIPS with crayons:

• Working on a sealed surface (snowflake chalk paint, PaperArtsy Matte glaze, Clear gesso, Distress crazing collage glaze) are all brilliant ways to give tooth to the surface, and allow your crayons to 'grab' on the surface more easily.
• Working onto stencilled texture (remember Grunge Paste has awesome tooth) also gives an interesting surface for crayons to grab onto.
• Blending can be with your finger, a baby wipe, but also with a brush or Cut n dry foam wet with mediums like matte glaze, Snowflake paint
• Heat setting does not necessarily make a crayon permanent, but with Distress, Portfolios and Slick Stix, it seems to help a lot. Not with Gelatos though.
• Applying direct through a stencil is easy, soften with a baby wipe or your finger.
• Grating your crayon into texture pastes can be fun! You then can alter the colour of GP to anything you like
• You can even dissolve the crayon in water and make sprays.
• Try working on watercolour papers (unsealed) to achieve more traditional watercolour effects.

Videos:

Kim Dellow Comparison

Sandy Allnock Comparison

Sandy Allnock Distress Crayons used as traditional watercolour

Neocolour Crayons

Blog Posts:
Chris Cresswell, making sprays from crayons

Lin Brown, Blending crayons with Snowflake paint...

Hazel Agnew, Using crayons to watercolour doodles on vintage papers...

Anneke using gelatos in all kinds of ways to create a notebook...

And if you go back to the Wax challenge bog post here, scroll down and I summarised a bunch of samples i made with various Portfolio techniques from about 5 years ago...

Surfaces to work on

1. Smoothy 
This is an incredible, super smooth Italian Card stock available in Regular (£2.90, Pkt 10) and Heavyweight (£3.40, Pkt 10). It is beautiful paper that accepts all media, from paints to inks. Images such as photographic stamps will show fine detail of the images beautifully. The card is an un-coated, matte, surface, so inks do not bleed into the 'grain' of the paper as it is so smooth, but not shiny. This paper is perfect for journalling, scrapbooking, and all your stamping or mixed media crafts.

2. Watercolour Papers
In the online shop we have numerous brands of Watercolour papers. My comments are based on information I have read or videos I have watched online.

Paper comes as Hot Pressed (smooth), Cold Pressed (more tooth/ texture) or Rough (even more textured Cold Pressed), which relates to the smoothness of the surface (may be important for those stampers out there) and affects how you want the colours to sit and grab on the paper, how fast you want them to dry, vividness of the colour, and layering. On the hot pressed you will get paints pooling and sitting on the surface more than on the cold pressed.

Watercolour papers can also come in different weights, and artists will wet and stretch the paper, tape it to their working surface. This prevents buckling when you work with it. If it buckles/ cockles, the paint will not lay down onto the paper properly.

As crafters, we generally don't bother with the stretching paper process, but maybe you should try and see if you notice a difference. make sure you stretch onto a sealed surface, and its important to wet both sides of the paper.

Obviously the quality of the watercolour paint products you work with also plays a big part on how they sit on the paper. High quality will wet out, blend, dry and layer colours better, low quality may separate the pigments and look more grainy. There are lots of videos about this online. If you are using cheap paints, then use cheap paper, Don't use cheap paints on expensive paper. Craft brands are less likely to represent value for money than artist brands, you can get reasonable quality artist grade papers for less than some of the craft brand papers.

Arches- One of the top end brands. You might find it easier to work on the more expensive stuff, due to the way it absorbs the liquid, and allows colour to blend nicely.

Canson XL - Good quality product at a reasonable price.

Prima - cream in colour, better than Ranger, but still a cheap option. Type not differnetiated on packaging.

Ranger - Fairly low quality, very white paper, but the paint seems to struggle to sink into the paper, not clear which type of paper it is, seems to take time to wet.

3. Vintage Papers
As some old book papers are quite absorbent and sucky, you can get surprising results on this type of paper.

4. Sealed Surfaces
By adding tooth to a surface by sealing with a matte glaze, chalk paint, gesso (white or clear) you will create a surface for the watercolour to pool on. 

This can be fun to get 'tide mark' effects, but I am sure watercolour artists would be horrified at us experimental crafters using them on sealed surfaces! 

Personally, I have never understood why you would buy good quality watercolor paper and then seal it with gesso. I think it makes more sense to use a cheaper heavy paper, eg cartridge paper. If you are working onto of gesso, then logically what does it matter what paper is underneath, and certainly I wouldn't be wasting my Arches by putting gesso anywhere near it, perfect with the Ranger or Prima stuff though.

Watercolour Paints

Watercolour paints either come in tubes or pans, both options can be in various sizes. You can make your own palettes using tubes into an empty palette. The advantage of this is you can use the colours you prefer rather than standard primaries. (see picture below where I used tubes to create colour wheels onto cold pressed paper)

Tubes are creamier, more pigmented and wet out more easily. Pans are good to be spritzed with water a few minutes ahead of working with them to soften before you start using them

We have a few travel size pans for sale, which are compact and good if you scrap on the go, or take stuff with you places.

Kuretake Gansai, 36pan £49.50 - High quality for a full pan, nice range of colours, wets out nicely.

Koi - 18 pan £25.50 or 24 pan £29.95, reliable, blends well, nice range of colours, travel box with useful palette.

Prima - Confections (3 colour options) £22.50 Considered to be quite opaque for a watercolour, but cute tins, and you can stack way more extra pans in the tin if you re-arrange how they sit onto a magnetised backing.

We also have a range of masking fluids and paint mixing palettes online too.

Watercolour Brushes: 

We have a range of watercolour brushes, the set of 3 pentel is useful, and its a great pen. 

As far as real sable or squirrel brushes go, you probably need to visit an art store to see the size, feel the brush, and decide what you need. Sizes from brand to brand are not consistent, and price varies too depending on the quality you wish to purchase. 

A basic set you would need a large mop, a small, medium and large point, a flat wash, and maybe a rigger.

I hope that helps as a starting or reference point if watercolour or crayons are new to you. Remember, pinterest and YouTube are a great source of information!

People to watch online if you are getting started as a crafter.

Sandy Allnock

Christine Werner

The mind of watercolour

Watercolour Misfit

See you Friday! We are off out tonight for Courtney's graduation meal, postponed from last night as it was too hot! And we were too tired after being oop North for the ceremony!

~Leandra

Peek Week {Infusions}

Hi Everyone, Leandra here

We are going a bit 'off piste' this week on the blog. I think it's called flying by the seat of your pants!

Usually at this time of year we release a bunch of products all in one week with a great big hoo haa. Well, not this week... we do have new products coming, but they will be drip drip on Saturday evenings for several weeks starting at the END of this week.

Instead, this will be a week of two halves. First up I am taking a look at some of the newer products we sell (not just our brand), and sharing a few tips and ideas and periscopes with those. Then later in the week I might share some sneaks of what is to come over the next 8 weeks! Literally that depends on what we manage to get through initial production processes early this week! ...i did say flying by the seat of my pants....

So why the change in plan? Well, Mark has turned into Bob the Builder here at PA HQ, and due to summer not really arriving in England this year, progress has been incredibly slow! So in order to try and free up time for him to crack on building to make our space bigger, we had to revise the product release system.

Usually this is our quiet(er) time of the year, so I am also hoping that even with Mr Bob hammer-banging in the background that we might get to do some periscope demos too. Courtney is home from uni, and so with any luck she can be my film buddie. (She doesn't actually know this yet!)...flying by the seat of our pants.... 

...aaaannnndddd.....having said all that we are away Monday/ Tuesday as it is her university graduation ceremony, so tomorrow we will have a quickie blog post, and then we'll be back Wednesday for a live demo.

So that's what I'm aiming for, lets see how close we get. It's a bit of a challenge, and we have to keep up with orders....

Whew, we can do this!

So tonight I wanted to talk infusions. If you haven't had a go yet, you should. They are fun, and pretty easy to cope with....

Features

• 12 Water soluble, non permanent dye stains mixed with walnut crystals.
• Easy to apply from the bottle.
• The colour dye and the walnut dissolve at different speeds. That opens all kinds of doors for FUN!
• Permanent when spritzed with gum arabic dissolved in water or when applied with a glaze (matte, satin, gloss).
• Use lots or a little of the powder for totally different effects.
• Use lots or a little water for totally different effects.
• Differing results on both sealed or sucky surfaces (smoothy/ gesso/ fresco/ watercolour paper, Yupo, Grunge paste).
• Amazing on/ into textured surfaces or on/ into gels and mediums.
• Superb on fabric.
• Fabulous with stencils, applied direct or sprinkled into mediums/ textures.

Don't forget that if you want to find out more ideas, use the search feature on this blog to discover multiple ideas with Infusions.

So below are some of my favourite Infusions posts/ tutorials that we have seen since launching the product this year, you can see load more by going to my Pinterest page too!

Infusions vs Brushos - Scrapcosy

In this video scrapcosy shows you how to get your bottles set up ready to use, and does a great comparison with Brushos, so you know the difference. It's a great starting point.

Vicky - Art Journal Flower Video

In this video, Vicky uses a PaperArtsy glaze with infusions as the starting point for her jounral page, the trick is to work fast, if you over work it you will get the walnut stain dominating, if you work fast, then there will be more colour. So much fun to play with the balance on this idea.

Vicky - Art Journal Poppies

And again, she uses more techniques with infusions, stencils and more!

Kaz Hall - Reverse Stencil

Love how simple and effective this is! Try it! Try different types of papers, sealed with paint, unsealed, watercolour, even yupo! Not only has Kaz used infusions, but there are some great PaperArtsy stamps used too...and a video, where she shows the technique so well.

Keren Baker - Infused Flowers

I love Keren's use of white Embossing Powder on this project. It really makes the colours pop, and adds some structure to what can be a messy technique.

Helen Chilton - Fabric heart

Always one to push out the boat, Helen creates a stunning mix and blend onto fabric so effortlessly.

Wanda Hentges - Fabric ATC's

Wanda is one of those crafters who simply masters every product, substrate and technique, she is a whizz! I love how simple these are, and embossing onto fabric too! Again, it gives that pop! I think white EP is key with infusions!

Emma Godfrey - Patchwork Frame

Again, embossing powder features on this one, but this time Emma used gold, and strips of differently infused papers to create this amazing piece of patchworked paper, which she arranged and then framed to be perfect interior-decor art!

Lauren Hatwell - Crooked House

Ok, so Lauren throws a zillion techniques into this little baby, so you really should take a closer look! I totally love the cracked infusions roof and frame! It's brilliant!

Keren Baker - Paper Strips

Scroll down on this post to the last card - strips, she cover a lot of ground in this post with lots of ideas, but this is great for leftovers!

Astrid McClean - Journal

Well Astrid always does amazing work, and this one really stuns with its bold colour contrasts. Do take a look for incredible detail on how she made this beautiful spread in her journal, only shown you a snippet above!

Kay Carley - Blowy Things

Kay seems to manage a subtle use of infusions so delicately here. Her stamps are fabulous, we might have more soon too!!

Ellie Knol - Patches of colour

This is such a minimalist idea, and Ellie has used Bistres, so infusions would fit the bill too!

Ruth Mescall - Tags

Ruth has done LOADS of posts on infusions, so you MUST go and check out this post and other on her blog. She has lots of happy accidents along the way too!

So there you have it, a massive reference post for you to bookmark for Infusions ideas. I was supposed to do a periscope on this tonight too, but we are meeting friends from New Zealand in London, so I am not home to film as planned! Let's aim for Wednesday!

Take care

~Leandra