This month’s art journal session, “a tale of two halves”, required a little playing to pull together. It became a lesson in contrasts: complementary colours, techniques and reflectivity from varnishes and mica.
Making notes
I used a colour wheel to choose my two complementary colours: red-violet and yellow-green. Just a reminder: complementary colours are directly opposite each other on the wheel and offer the greatest contrast to create a ‘pop’.
Start by masking off the top half of the page. I didn’t measure the mid-point and missed the centreline, but it was close enough.
Water down your chosen acrylic paint colour and cover the bottom half – this seals the paper once dried.
Make sure your workspace is well ventilated for this bit. Working quickly, swipe a diluted layer of paint across the previous layer and then sprinkle isopropanol into the wet paint. This technique will NOT work on dry paint.
The isopropanol weakens the acrylic paint and will push it away making random blotches. Leave it to dry or once the blotches have developed you can use a heat tool. Again, make sure you are in a well ventilated area!
Repeat a couple more times to build up more overlapping blotches and create a random texture.
Before it is completely dry, spritz with Distress Spritz for some sparkle. I used a mix of Picked Raspberry and Wilted Violet to get the colours to match.
Dry well and then cover with two layers of a gloss varnish.
Switch your masking to reveal the top half and cover the work you have just finished.
Seal the page in the same way with your complementary colour and dry. This time, splat clean water onto dilute paint, dry briefly and then blot the wet paint/water mix up with paper towel. Theoretically, you will end up with the paint lifting leaving a lighter patch. It is, however, a temperamental techninque so don’t expect it to work perfectly.
Build up the texture with more layers, dry completely and apply a layer of ultramatte varnish.
You will now have incorporated the three contrasts: technique, colour and finish.
I used a 12×12″ stencil, suitably masked and stuck down to emphasise the contrasts even more. For the top half, I added two coats of the opposite colour – ideally (and recognised in retrospect) using the alcohol technique to match the bottom section. Dry and finish with the gloss varnish again.
Switch the masking to work on the bottom half. As I was working light on dark, I used a couple of layers of white gesso first before adding the colour. Again, you could use the water technique to match the upper section. Dry thoroughly and varnish with the ultramatte finish.
Once I lifted the stencil, there was some touching up to do – some colour seepage and matting down any errant gloss.
To just give my page a little something extra and finish it off, I added a border with gold metallic Posca pen, and shading to the letters with gold and white to create an embossed edge look.