Saturday 16 September 2017

Journalling background - Kinky Boots Girl 2 - using Dylusions mica sprays



A few days ago, I did a Warhol-inspired acrylic paint layout in my large Dylusions Creative Journal, which I had painted with black gesso first, and on which I'd used the mid-1960s girl stencil from the Andy Skinner Vogue stencil-and-mask set. Today, I was itching to try out my new Dylusions Square Black Journal and what better products to use with it than the Dylusions Mica Sprays?



The pages are 8" by 8" (20.3cm by 20.3 cm), which is a lovely size and perfect for this layout as it's based on a 6" by 6" (15.2cm x 15.2cm) square. I did it slightly differently this time as rather than creating a set of acrylic squares over black gesso and then stencilling in the girls in black gesso over it, I'm masking out the girl and reserving the black of the background. My original idea was to leave the edges of the page as a black border but of course, being a messy slut, I had to cover up some splashes and so on with more mica, but it looks fab and still works as an obvious border.

WHAT I USED:

Ranger Dylusions Creative Journal, Square, Black [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(you could use the Square Standard colour [BUY NOW: USA, UK] and just give it a coat of black gesso - I personally recommend the DecoArt Black Gesso [BUY NOW: USA, UK], personally, as it gives a lovely, flat, matte, even surface that is perfect - or you could use any of the Large [BUY NOW: USA, UK] or Large Flip [BUY NOW: USA, UK] journals, coat them with black gesso and just work in the middle of a page)

Ranger Dylusions Mica Sprays Set [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(if you have any of the other mica spray sets, you could use those instead just as easily - Tim Holtz [BUY NOW: USA, UK], Dina Wakley [BUY NOW: USA, UK], Wendy Vecchi [BUY NOW: USA, UK] - or of course any other mica-based sprays. You need ones that are a colourless matrix with coloured mica, otherwise it will be too opaque really - the Distress Spray Stains in metallic colours could work I guess)

Ranger Non-Stick Craft Sheet [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(you could just work on the table or over old newspaper or whatever, but I find the Ranger sheet cleans up SO easy!)

DecoArt Andy Skinner 'Vogue' stencil and mask set (6" by 6") [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(you need to use the mask for the mid-1960s girl in boots and a mini-dress for this project and don't need the stencils or the girl in the mid-1950s dress or the speech bubble)

Ruler (12")

Pencil (HB or H, not a B)

Post-It Notes or Post-It Tape
(these are used for masking and you need quite a lot of them - but don't worry, just buy huge packs whenever you see them on offer - never pay full price!)

A sheet of scratch cardstock (A4 or US Letter) 
(this is for masking the opposite page of the journal and for priming your sprays on)

Kitchen roll (kitchen paper/paper towel)
(this is optional but saves time - you could also use a heat tool but I don't like to use them for spray techniques as I find natural drying gives more texture and depth)

WHAT I DID:
STEP 1: I measured in 1" away from the edge of each side of a right-hand page in the journal and drew lines to make a 6" square in the middle of the page, with a 1" gap around each side. This is super-easy as it's an 8" by 8" page, of course. If you're working in the larger journals, just place it in the middle in each direction.

STEP 2: I measured out 2" intervals along each edge and drew a small line and then joined it all up to make a set of 2" by 2" square, nine in toto.

STEP 3: To best arrange our colours, you need them to not result in any 2 adjacent squares having the same colour and this is how to do it - the numbers are just "Colour 1", "Colour 2" etc:
1
2
3
3
1
2
2
3
1
This is of course only one of several ways one can arrange one's colours, but it's important to work this out in advance.




STEP 4: Place your Kinky Boots Girl mask over the right-most column of squares and then use Post-It Notes or Tape to mask around each "Colour 1" square of the grid so that you don't cross-contaminate the colours. In doing this, you'll cover up the top 2/3rds of the mask and the Post-Its will hold her in place pretty well. Cover up the whole rest of the page, including the edges. Lay your sheet of scratch cardstock over the opposite page (I forgot to do this!).




STEP 5: Pick your first colour - mine was Bubblegum Pink - and shake it really well to fully suspend the mica. You must store all mica and pigment sprays horizontally and never, ever vertically as that can cause blockage of the dip-tube and knacker your spray. Prime the spray by releasing a few squirts onto your scratch stock, then spray from about 6" away into each of your squares - I did about 2-3 sprays onto each square.

STEP 6: You can either let this air-dry for about 30 minutes, or you could heat-set it, or you could roll a kitchen roll across the page after the first 5 minutes and get pretty good results - I did this page with a mix of the latter and air-drying to give each colour a slightly different texture.

STEP 7: Remove all the Post-It masking and discard them (don't dispose, just put them in a pile - don't try and re-use as they won't stick too well) - be VERY careful as the Post-It glue gets a bit stronger when wet and you can exfoliate the black pages of the journal (which are not as hard-wearing as the cream ones) if you're not gentle!

STEP 8: Put the girl back into position (you can see the right place from the masked out feet!) and repeat Steps 4 - 7, masking off everything except the "Colour 2" squares. My Colour 2 was Vibrant Turquoise. After repeating Step 7, repeat this whole process again for the final colour - I used Crushed Grape. 




STEP 9: To make the border, once the whole thing is dry, mask the entire 6" by 6" grid area with Post-It notes and as you do so, note on them with a pencil which colour is in which edge-most square. For example based on which colours I used and the grid shown in Step 3, my top row was pink, turquoise, purple. Now work out which order to spray your border in - you can use my layout below if it helps. Spray the border with just one squirt of each spray on each edge next to each grid-square, allowing them to overlap. I found working from 8-10" away helped this. Don't forget to give the nozzles of each spray a quick wipe with a damp paper towel or a babywipe before you put them away, horizontally, of course! Just leave it dry et voilà!

How I arranged my grid (emboldened text) and border (standard text) using Bubblegum Pink, Vibrant Turquoise and Crushed Grape mica sprays

GrGrPiTuTu
GrPiTuGrTu
TuGrPiTuPi
PiTuGrPiGr
PiPiTuGrGr

As I dried each colour in the grid part of the design in different ways I got different textures. Bubblegum Pink was left for 1h to dry; Vibrant Turquoise was left for 20 minutes then dried with kitchen roll and Crushed Grape was left 5 minutes then dried with kitchen roll.







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