Media Journal: Lemon and Lime, Dancing Time background and Screw The Crowd tag/tip-in

Two for the price of one today - a background and a tip-in to sit in front of it! It will be taped into the journal spine so it sits in front of the green background but it not attached over it, more like an extra page.

A month ago now, I made this background in my Dina Wakley Media Journal using a couple of fluid acrylics and stamped all over it with one of Dyan Reavely's beautiful couture stamps, but I've not done anything with it since - as you can see in my photos, the very middle stamp on the page is much darker and I was going to colour that one in with India ink or something once the paint had cured but I never got round to doing it. This afternoon, I wanted to do a little, quick project, and I made a little tag and was going to stick it over that background, but I've opted to stick it into the spine of the journal instead, like an extra mini-page. I'm fairly sure a "tip-in" has to go on the outside edge of the page (help, anyone?!) so I don't know what to call it! I'll go through how I made the background first too, since both techniques are so simple and quick.

The tip-in dress stamp really reminded me so much of the Dior New Look and in particular the costumes that Claire wears in Season 2 of Outlander, which were also interpreted as 18th Century versions of the New Look too, in amazing colours. Season 3 has just started a few weeks ago and it's amazing - if you've not seen Outlander but love any of the following, I think you'll love it too - it is helping me to cope without Game of Thrones at the moment:

• Fantasy adventure but in the realms of the real world - so time travel in this case.
• Historical adventure and drama.
• Men wearing kilts.
• Men not wearing kilts.
• Men not wearing anything at all.
• Just Google "Sam Heughan Outlander"... go on...
• Realistic portrayal of battles, sex, life in general etc.
• Fantastic theme tune.

For UK users, if you want to watch Outlander, you'll need to be an Amazon Prime account holder and an Amazon TV user, which is easy as most recent TVs have an app, but if not, you can either buy a dongle, or, of course, you can watch it via the Amazon website. If you want to try an Amazon Prime account, you can get a FREE 30 day trial right now, which is enough to watch Seasons 1 and 2 at least! For the sake of completeness, you can also get the books too.

For US users, if you want to watch Outlander, you'll need to use a Starz account, for which you can get a free trial of the Amazon Channels programme. You can also get an Amazon TV dongle. If you want to read the books instead, click here.

Because of the green-based background, the dress I made obviously had to be a shade of red or pink, so that it would really stand out - and one of Claire's most notorious Season 2 dresses whilst in 18th century France was a vibrant shade of red, but I chose to use an almost violent shade of pink with red accessories. In a way, of course, Claire is never one of the crowd, but you'll have to watch the show to find out why!

Lemon and Lime Dancing Time Background (acrylic on paper)

WHAT I USED:

Dina Wakley Media Journal [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(I used one of the righthand "watercolour" paper pages)

Daler and Rowney Simply Acrylic Gesso (White) [BUY NOW: UK - I can't find this in the USA but you can use this awesome alternative instead]

DecoArt Fluid Acrylics in:
   Yellow Green Light [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   (PG36 Phthalocyanine Green Yellow Shade, PY83 Diarlylide Yellow HR, PW6 Titanium White) 
   Hansa Yellow Light [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   (PY3 Hansa Yellow 10G) 

Ranger Dylusions Couture Collection silicone stamp set [DISCONTINUED]
(this set and the rest of the couture collection were discontinued a few years back but keep an eye out for them - you could alternatively use the larger stamps this set was based on, if you can find them, which were Walk In The Park [BUY NOW: USA, UK] and Night At The Opera [BUY NOW: USA, UK]. For this background, I used the dress from the latter in its mini version from the Collection set, which I will call the "Opera Frock" for clarity)

Ranger Archival Ink in:
   Leaf Green (Wendy Vecchi Collection) [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Vivid Chartreuse [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

3/4" Golden Talkon paint brush with soft bristles, suitable for acrylic paint
(any really cheap golden taklon set of brushes will have one of these in it - they're very inexpensive!)

DoCrafts PaperMania 5" by 7" acrylic stamping block [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

WHAT I DID:

STEP 1: I covered the page entirely in white gesso and left it to dry fully, overnight. I applied it with a damp brush as 2 thin coats, the second applied after about 20 minutes when the first coat had just gone a bit tacky.

STEP 2: I used the same brush (washed of course and a little damp!) to apply the paints. I applied the yellow first and then added the green on top - I only used up-down brushstrokes to get a nice vibrant blend and was careful not to let the colours mix too much!

STEP 3: Once the paints had cured for 24h, I stamped the Opera Frock onto the page first in Leaf Green and then in Vivid Chartreuse, making a kind of grid pattern of alternating colours - down at the bottom and along one edge, you have incomplete stamps but that's normal.


Screw The Crowd Tag/Tip-In (ink on paper)

WHAT I USED:

Ranger Dylusions Size 10 Journalling Tag [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

Ranger Archival Ink in:
   Shadow Grey [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

Tonic Studios Tim Holtz Stamping Platform [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(NB: I didn't use this - I used another common tool on the market, but I cannot recommend it as I've heard awful stories of both shop owners trying to get damaged stock sorted out and customers too, and of pretty nasty, bullying tactics from the owner thereof - as such, I won't recommend it, and will recommend the superior product above, that has a nicer price point!)

Ranger Dylusions Couture Collection silicone stamp set [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(this set and the rest of the couture collection were discontinued a few years back but keep an eye out for them - you could alternatively use the larger stamps this set was based on, if you can find them, which were Walk In The Park [BUY NOW: USA, UK] and Night At The Opera [BUY NOW: USA, UK]. For this tag, I used the dress from the former and one of the hats too, in their mini versions from the Collection set, which I will call the "Park Frock" for clarity)

Kuretake ZIG Clean Colour Real Brush Markers in:
   022 Carmine Red
   025 Pink
   071 Flesh Colour
(I got these from the ZIG Clean Colour Real Brush Markers 24 Pack BUY NOW: USA, UK])

Winsor and Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Size 0 Round Ranger [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
(this is the brush I used, but it ain't cheap - as you probably know, I'm really a fine-art watercolourist so I don't have many inexpensive brushes - but do try the Prolene Plus Size 0 Round as an excellent high-quality-low-price alternative - you can get with a set of other beautiful Prolene Plus brushes too for very economical price - BUY NOW USA, UK)

Ranger Dylusions Paint Pens in:
   Postbox Red
   Cut Grass
(these don't come in open stock, so you'll need to get the 6-pack of Dylusions Paint Pens [BUY NOW: USA, UK] to get them - they're SO cool!)

Container of water

WHAT I DID:

STEP 1: I stamped both the Park Frock and one of the hats onto a Dylusions tag using my stamping tool to get a good impression - Shadow Grey is lovely and light and works well for this kind of technique.

STEP 2: I decided to colour the frock Pink and so worked in small sections, applying the watercolour ink from the pen along whichever edges would be darkest and then used my wet brush to blend it out and soften it. I worked across the skirt first and made the 'under' sections darkest. I then did the bodice and made the sleeves quite pale.

STEP 3: Whilst the frock dried, I did the same on the hat, this time using Carmine Red. I did the shoes in Carmine Red also, and once the frock was dry too, the belt.

STEP 4: The legs of this image are just single lines, so I added a narrow cone in Flesh Colour that you can hardly see to be honest on the cream tag - doing this added a 'leg' and made the original grey line into the seams on her stockings.

STEP 5: Using the Dylusions Paint Pens I then wrote in a very free and non-conformist way, in Postbox Red (to match the Opera Frock) and Cut Grass (to represent the crowd of Park Frock ladies) my sentiment - why be one of the crowd?



   

Seasons Out Of Time Layout: Les Feuilles Mortes

I've started work on an autumn layout for my Seasons out of Time journal project, and it is going to involve cascades of beautiful autumn foliage falling down the pages, and I wanted it to be bright and vibrant and in shades of orange, red, brown, and yellow with hints of green maybe. I decided to combine my Dylusions ink sprays and Tim Holtz Distress spray stain to get the colours I wanted, prepare a tag as a good surface then stamp on some leaves I could later cut out and glue onto the layout once it's ready and then they'll stand out and look beautiful. This layout is called "Les Feuilles Mortes" (the dead leaves) after the 1945 song, which was re-released in English translation in the same year of course as "Autumn Leaves" - obviously because the layout is based on falling, autumn leaves.

This is by no means a complete project, just one of maybe a dozen elements that will make up this layout, but it made a beautiful autumnal colourway and I wanted to share that.

WHAT I USED:

Ranger Dylusions Ink Sprays in:
   Tangerine Dream [Buy now: USA, UK]
   Fresh Lime [Buy now: USA, UK]
   Lemon Zest [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain in:
   Carved Pumpkin [Buy now: USA, UK]
   Vintage Photo [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Dylusions Size 12 Tag [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Dylusions Branching Out stamp set [Buy now: USA, UK]

Ranger Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink in:
   Potting Soil [Buy now: USA, UK]
(you can also get this same colour in the Wendy Vecchi Mini Archival Set 1, with Carnation Red, Sunflower, Garden Patina - which is actually very economical if you want to build your stash - BUY NOW: USA, UK)

WHAT I DID:

STEP 1: I first sprayed the tag in a generous coat of Lemon Zest rather than spraying it with water - the wetness will help the brighter, darker colours to blend and will fill any gaps with a beautiful yellow.

STEP 2: I sprayed Tangerine Dream and Fresh Lime over most of the tag.

STEP 3: Immediately, I switched to the Distress spray stain and added Carved Pumpkin and Vintage Photo. As you can see from the photo above, they don't all sit 'equally' on the page. The reason: Distress stains have a different density and hydrophobicity to the Dylusions products. To analogise firstly ionic strength. If you were to mix a very salty solution with pure tap water, you'll get all sorts of swirling and mixing and clear mixing lines visible in it (Schlieren as the Germans call it) - you can try it out and see - this is because one has far more salt dissolved in it and thus when it mixes with the other, they try and equal out and the salt tries to move around and equilibrate it - that's owing to both liquids having different densities - if you dissolve 200g of salt in 1,000mL water, then 1mL of that water has a mass of 1.2g (1mL water = 1g, plus the 0.2g salt in every 1mL), therefore, it has a density of 1.2g/mL - in short, they will try and equal out and you'll see mixing/swirling/etc happen, or, if they were mixed more slowly, the water will sit on top of the salt water and form separate layers. Hydrophobicity is a measure of how much something wants to adhere to surfaces and not be in a water-based solution - in this context, it's really a measure of "does this dye molecule want to be joined to paper or in solution?" - so what happens is that one of them adheres rapidly to the paper, one of them more slowly.

What does this mean in practice? It means you get amazing patterns - you get the two different products mixing slowly and naturally and producing mixes of colour in close proximity without making mud.

STEP 4: I left it without touching it at all to dry for 24h and it looked beautiful! I then stamped the open/spotty leaves stamp from the Branching Out set onto it with Wendy Vecchi's beautiful Potting Soil Archival Ink - this is an oil-based ink so it won't lift the products underneath. I didn't apply it perfectly - I wanted a rough look. When my journal pages are ready, I will cut out all the whole leaves and adhere them to the pages individually. I LOVE the colours this has produced! Every leaf is totally unique and has texture and usually 2-3 colours. I had planned to stamp with some random texture over this to add interest but I really don't need to now!

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

Gr	Gr	Pi	Tu	Tu
Gr	Pi	Tu	Gr	Tu
Tu	Gr	Pi	Tu	Pi
Pi	Tu	Gr	Pi	Gr
Pi	Pi	Tu	Gr	Gr

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.