distress oxide inks

A colourful bunch

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This is just finished, though the 3D Crystal Lacquer on the flower centres hasn’t dried yet, so they’re a tad on the cloudy side.

I’m really pleased with this.  Not least of which for bravely, possibly even crazily, using some of my entangled, abstract art to make the flowers!

So, how did I do this?

Firstly, I made the background.  I used a piece of cream paper that has a texture on it that is designed for use with pastels, charcoal and coloured pencils, and I added colour using Distress Oxide inks.  I then sprayed it with a solution of gold Perfect Pearls which gave water spots and gold shimmers to the background.

Next, I’d had this crazy idea to use some of my art to create the flowers.  I chose some art that had colours that would stand out against the background and each other and I used circle punches to cut out circles of varying sizes.  I used a mini ink blending tool and sponge to add jet black Archival Ink to the edges of the circles to distress them as well as to give them a definite edge against each other.

The circles were stuck together in groups of three and then stuck onto the background in a pleasing arrangement, as if they were flowers in a bunch.

Next, came the outlining with a black Sharpie, as well as adding patterns to the circles to create petals and so on.  The white was added using a Sakura Glaze pen.  I also added gold patterns and highlights using a UniBall Signo pen.

The next step was to draw the stems and leaves, which was done with the Sharpie pen.  I used a waterbrush with paint from some of Derwent’s line painter pens.

Next, I intensified and added shadows under and around the flowers, stems and leaves using Inktense pencils and a waterbrush.

This was followed by the creation of the border using a black Posca pen.

Finally, the mixed media panel was adhered to a black background and the gold pen was used to add lines around the panel.  Oh, and then I decided to add 3D Crystal Lacquer to the flower centres.  An accidental drop of the lacquer on the background led to me adding more drops.

I’ve really surprised myself with this project.  I really enjoyed it, and even though I was wondering what on Earth I was thinking in ‘destroying’ some artwork I liked, I came to realise it was repurposing the artwork to create something new, different and allowing me to explore the world of mixed media more, particularly how it relates to myself.

 

I have inky fingers…

Angela Porter2 Comments
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An ATC or ACEO card made earlier today.

Mixed media experimentation is a tad addictive!

I spent yesterday creating more inchies and betwinchies, as well as shopping for some supplies.  This morning, I created the ACEO/ATC above.

The card itself is made by Strathmore and is some of their 400 Series Watercolour paper with a cold pressed surface.  I added layers of Distress Oxides, spraying with water to get the textures.  I also added patterns through stencils and stamps, followed by a final spray with gold Perfect Pearls.  I edged the card with Ranger’s Archival jet black ink.

It took a little while to rifle through my growing collection of inchies and other art tiles to find one that suit the background.  This tile has a faint crazing pattern and an aged/distressed look achieved by the use of Tim Holtz’s Collage medium – crazing followed by some distress ink rubbed on to bring out the crazing.  A layer of 3D Crystal Lacquer added a gloss finish to the tile.

Once the tile was stuck in place, I used a Pitt artist pen to draw patterns around it, added the words, more patterns and highlights using a gold gel pen. Finally, I added some small gems using Glossy Accents as a glue.

I do have a couple of things left for me to do with the ACEO/ATC – to add a layer of Micro Glaze to seal the surface so any water/moisture won’t affect it, and to add information to the back of the card.

I am really chuffed with this ACEO, as well as the background created with the Distress Oxides; I’ve achieved something I never, ever thought I could!  Before Distress Oxides I struggled to make backgrounds.  I don’t really get along with acrylic paints, spray generally are too messy for me, the original Distress Inks would run into one another and the colours become really poopy.

However, the Distress Oxides are a completely different medium, one that really seems to suit me and work for me and with me.  They are opening up doors for me to express and explore my creativity in ways I’d given up on with the failures (well, what I consider failures) with the arious paints and other media I’ve used in the past.

All it took was for me to find the right medium for me to use.

 

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Yesterday , I also I made two beautiful backgrounds that I just can’t bear to cut up or cover over, yet.  I’m sure I will. The photo doesn’t do them justice.  There are many layers of colour, all made using Distress Oxides on some really heavy and smooth waterolour paper (300gsm I think it is).  Patterns have been added using water, stencils and stamps.  Finally, the backgrounds have been sprayed with copper Perfect Pearls, which shimmer and also really bring out the depth of colours in the layers.

Mixed media

Angela Porter2 Comments

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Over the past two or three days, Ive been making ‘inchies’ and decided it was time to put them together as a mixed media artwork, which isn’t yet finished, as you can see above.

Inchies are 1″x 1″ pieces of art, though I have made some 1″ x 2″ tiles too.

There is something very satisfying in making such tiny pieces of art, and it’s nice to turn them into some kind of mosaic.  I’ve chosen inchie (and betwinchie) tiles that say something about me, some of them quite literally by the words on them, others more symbolically.

Making the inchies and betwinchies

To make the inchie and betwinchie tiles I started with mixed media paper.  My preferred brand is Claire Fontaine, and I used some sheets of white mixed media paper, and some that are natural in colour.

Distress oxide inks and a stencil brush were used to add colour to the sheets of paper, with a misting of water applied once this was complete to bring out the ‘oxide’ effect.  The Distress Oxides look quite different on the natural paper, more muted as the oxide ‘bloom’ is more apparent.

Next, I cut the sheets into 1″ x 1″ and 1″ x 2″ tiles.  I edged the tiles with black by using the edge of a wide tip on an alcohol marker.  Drawings and patterns were then added using Pitt Artist pens by Faber-Castell.  I wrote words on some of the tiles, on a few I used some ChitChat stickers from Tim Holtz’s Ideaology range.  Then,  Derwent Inktense pencils with a water brush and coloured pencils with a blending stick from Faber Castell were used to add colour depth to the tiles.  The next step was to add white highlights and metallic and iridescent details using gel pens and paints.

To finish the tiles, I added a layer of 3D Crystal Lacquer by Sakura Hobby Craft to give them a highly glossy, slightly domed finish.

I then had a small bowl filled with these tiles, and had to try to do something with them.  So, I thought I’d make a kind of mosaic of ones that said something about me.

Making the background and mosaic

I needed a background for this, so I took another piece of the  Mixed Media paper, in white, and added colour using ink blending tools and the Distress Oxide inks, followed by a light spray of water.

I used various stencils, again with ink blending tools and Distress Oxides to add patterns.  After each stencil, I sprayed the stenciled areas quite liberally with water so that the dye part of the Oxides inks ran, but the pigment ink remained in place.  I also let any puddles of water form or run as they wished to do so.  Finally, I edged the piece of paper with Vintage Photo Distress oxide ink, again using a blending tool, and then sprayed with water once again.

I didn’t take a photo of the background, which I was really pleased with and almost didn’t want to do anything with other than keep it and look at it.

However, I gritted my teeth and started to choose the tiles I wanted to use and to lay them out on the background.

I then used a collage medium to stick the tiles down, and the result is what you see.

It’s all a bit wibbly-wobbly, but that’s quite representative of me!

Learning points

I know it’s not finished yet, but it’s drying as I found that if I got the collage medium on the Crystal Lacquer finish I got dull patches, so an extra layer of Crystal Lacquer has been applied to the affected tiles and these are now drying.  So, I need to make the inchies and not finish them off before I adhere them to a project, or I need to find a different way to adhere them!

The background has warped – a lot.  I need to think about how to either keep it as flat as possible through all the repeated sprayings and dryings of the paper when the background is made, or I need to find a much thicker paper/card to use for this.

 

 

Abstract Drawing

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This drawing is all but finished. I just have to decide whether I’m going to add any metallic or iridescent highlights to it, along with any extra shading.

The background was created by using a stencil brush to apply Distress Oxide inks onto Daler-Rowney Mixed media paper (A4 in size) until I was happy with the colours.

Next, I sprayed the sheet with water and let it dry. This lets the Distress Oxide inks ‘bloom’ and become ‘soft’ as well as creates some texture in the form of patterns where the water droplets landed.

Pitt artist pens from Faber-Castell were used to draw in the main design, to which I then intensified the colour in many areas to add depth and interest; I used Derwent’s Inktense pencils to do this, along with a Kuretake water brush.

Finally, I added the fine details and patterns with a really fine Pitt artist pen.

Six small tiles

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I’ve completed the six tiles I cut from a single piece of mixed-media paper that I had coloured using Distress Oxide inks.

Next, I used Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens to draw the designs and add the patterns on each tile.

To add depth to the designs, I used Inktense pencils and Faber-Castell’s Albrecht Durer Watercolour pencils with a water brush.

Finally, I used either iridescent/metallic watercolour paints or a metallic gel pen to add some shimmering, shining details to each.

I really enjoyed doing these; again, they’re a little different to a lot of the work I’ve done for colouring books, so it’s nice to explore different ways of creating.

The thicker black lines I’m using at this time mean my art reminds me a little of stained glass and also of lino cuts.  I do like the very bold lines; it almost seems like I’m making a statement.

Distress Oxide Inks – my first play.

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Today, I picked up the first 12 colours in the new Distress Oxide inks from my fabulous local art shop – Dandie Crafts. I’ve been looking forward to getting them since I saw them launched by Tim Holtz just prior to and during the Creativation 2017 craft show.

The above image is a typical ‘Angela-doodle’ drawn using Sakura Micron and UniBall UniPin pens on a background prepared using the new Distress Oxide inks.  Before I let you know what I think of them, here’s a little bit about them.

The Distress Oxide inks are designed by Tim Holtz and made by Ranger. This is the description of them from the Ranger website:

Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink Pads are water-reactive dye & pigment ink fusion that creates and oxidized effect when sprayed with water. Use with stamps, stencils, and direct to surface. Blend using Ink Blending Tools and Foam. Re-ink using Distress Oxide Reinkers.

My first job on opening my ink pads was to test them out on different papers so I gained an idea of the colours they’d be, as well as how they react with water.  To create these test swatches I stamped two ‘feathers’ with each colour on the paper/card.  I then used an ink blending tool to smear some colour onto the paper.  Next, I used a wet paintbrush to add water to the second feather before swiping the paintbrush across the smear and adding droplets of water to it.

Here’s the inks on watercolour paper:

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Secondly,  here they are on Kraft card:

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Finally, I made test swatches on black paper:

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The first thing I noticed was how easy it was to stamp with the Distress Oxide inks.  The original Distress Inks tend to stamp ‘blotchy’ – that’s the nature of them though!  These, because of the pigment portion of the formulation, stamp with a more solid line.  Not only that, the Distress Oxide inks are much more opaque than Distress Inks.

Blending the Distress Oxide inks using a mini Smoothie blending sponge by Crafter’s Companion was an absolute dream!  The inks went on so smoothly and, because they stay wetter for longer than Distress inks.  Admittedly, I may not have picked the best paper for applying the Distress Oxide inks to, and there was some unevenness in the blend/smear, but it was much better than I’d manage to get with Distress Inks, unless I used a stencil brush to apply the Distress Inks very thinly and build the layers up.

I don’t think I let the inks dry for long enough before adding water as I did note that some of the pigment moved when I brushed the feather with a wet brush, and the smear.  That may be because I used a brush rather than using a spray bottle to mist water on them.

It took longer for the Oxide effect to develop as I’d added more water than a misting would have, but the colours kind of soften on the white watercolour paper, and brighten on the Kraft and black papers.  The opacity of the pigment ink is increased by the addition of water, and the colours really seem to glow.

I then just had to go and create a background using the Distress Oxide inks.  I used mini ink blending tools this time, and I used Strathmore Bristol paper with a vellum surface.  The inks didn’t want to blend all that smoothly on this surface, however I wasn’t really too concerned as I just wanted a background to draw on.  When I was happy with the colour blend, I did mist the surface with water to bring up the Oxide effect, as well as to have a few small water splatters on the surface.

The Distress Oxide colours are much more ‘me’ than the original Distress Inks. They’re so creamy and rich in colour thanks to the pigment part.  I also love the suede-like feel that results after a light misting with water.

I’m really happy with these new inks and I look forward to experimenting with them more.  I plan to use them like watercolour paints, I want to try using stencil brushes with them to blend the colours out, and no doubt I’ll find other ways to make colourful backgrounds for me to draw upon.