GRAPHITE EMBOSSING

I first saw this technique used on a Facebook group I belong to and was amazed at how it could totally change a dry embossed background.  I used watercolour paper as I needed to be able to add colour after using the graphite paper and found the watercolour paper in conjunction with both Distress Ink Pads and Distress Oxide Ink Pads, worked really well to add that little pop of colour.  The graphite paper needs to be pressed graphite side down towards the paper before running through the embossing folder.  (Ask me how I know this?  Cleaning graphite off your embossing folder is not fun!)  I found by choosing embossing folders that didn't have a lot of flat spaces worked best for me.  Detailed ones work really well with this technique and you can use the graphite on either side (either debossed or embossed) to create two very different looks, depending on how much detail is in your embossing folder on each side.

"2020"

"Wild Side"

"Psychotic"

"Eraser"

"Memories"


"Untie the ribbons"

 

GELLI PLATE MARK MAKING

There are lots of different options for you to make marks on Gelli Plates.  I recently bought myself a set of kids dough rollers, basically a handle with a textured wheel on it.  It's perfect for making patterns on Gelli Plates.  I have also used Cake Scrapers before which are a flat piece of plastic with different edges on them.  The set I bought was 6 different ones with different cut-out edges to create various designs.  As with anything that you press onto a Gelli Plate, you must take care not to press into it as you don't want to cut it or permanently damage it.  Bubble wrap, sticky tape roll inners, plastic lids from bottles, the list is endless of what you can use to make your Gelli Plate pulls more interesting.  

 "Wander"

(A Cake Scraper made the wavy pattern on this one)

"Home"
(This one is a little hard to see.  Down the very bottom,
there are some squiggly white lines.  They are from one of
the dough rollers.)

"Dead of night"
(There are wavy lines on the sky made with one of the 
Cake Scrapers.  I also used a flat edged Scraper to
create the mountains down the bottom before doing
the first pull.  The moon is stamped in Versamark,
then dusted with Perfect Pearls.  You can only
see it if you tilt the card a certain way.  The black
tree is the Deco Black Flock on a die-cut.)

"Isolation"
(These squiggly lines are easier to see and are made
with one of the dough rollers.  I stamped and embossed
the trees on the background with Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze.)

"Now"
(The little dots on the background are from
the spot dough roller.)

"Leave me alone"
(Once again, the squiggly dough roller.
The shiny lines are made by using an embossing
pen and Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze.)

FOILED GLUE GUN SHAPES

It's been a while since we've dragged out the glue guns so I thought it was time to do so again, this time for a great little embellishment to add to your backgrounds.  Coloured foils that you can use with two-way glue, double-sided tape, clear embossed stamped images that you then run through a laminator, all of the foils that work with these techniques will work with this one.  Not giving too much away as I want to save it for the class as a surprise as it's surprisingly simple to do, but looks complicated.  Right up my alley.  

"Pinata"

"Nothing"

"Whinese"

"Hamlet"

"Demons"

"Drama shield"

"Dead fish"

 

ALCOHOL INK FLOWERS

Alcohol Inks are such an amazing product and I am continually amazed at how many different styles of art you can do with them.  This technique is using the alcohol inks to create floral effects, yes I'm doing flowers.  Those who know me realise it's a stretch for me to do flowers but these are just so simple to do and look so wonderful, how could I resist?  These are way easier to do on a larger format, say the size of a card (4" x 6") or even an A4 piece.  On an ATC, a single drop of alcohol ink is all you need to create one of these flowers (ATC size is 2½" x 3½").  Using a rubber puffer and a little 91/99% alcohol is how you get the whispy effects.  The metallics are Pinata Brass and Ranger Alloy Foundry.  Black acrylic ink and a white water-based Sharpie marker create all those other little finishing touches.  I have used Kirkland Photo Paper (the back matte side) for my substrate but this works just as well on Yupo.

"Decompose"

"Enchant"

"Ornamental"

"Exotic"

"Cultivate"

"Embracing life"

"Germinate Grow"

"Fragile"

STENCIL EMBOSSING

 Stencils can be used with various mediums and this technique is probably one of the simplest ways to add texture to a background.  You can use either a clear embossing ink pad to press through the stencil to get your layer of embossing ink down before embossing with your embossing powders, or, you can use gesso to scrape through your stencil and then add your embossing powder while the gesso is still wet.  You should leave the gesso method to dry a little before heating with a heat gun (don't worry, the embossing powder will just sit there until you're ready to heat it).  If you heat too early, you can get little white explosions coming through your embossing powder.  However, this is a cool look in itself so maybe try it this way to see if it works with you have in mind.

"Social Distancing"

"Insignificant"

"People"

(For this one, I drew along the edge of a city stencil with

a clear embossing pen before embossing to get the

outlines of the buildings)

"Eat glitter"

(The sun rays are glitter embossing powder while the

bird is a JAC paper shape covered with leafing foils)

"Art is an experience"

"Wild side"

(Love this 2-tone spotty embossing powder called 101 Dalmatians)

ACRYLIC INK ACCENTS

 Some time ago I bought some watercolour drawing inks and a glass dip pen as I loved the look of the various colours of inks.  Fast forward a few months and I found a couple of artists who were using acrylic drawing inks on top of alcohol inks.  I loved the contrast between the freestyle whispy background of the alcohol inks with the more solid lines that acrylic inks can create, without messing up the alcohol ink as acrylic ink has no solvent in it.  So the base of these are all alcohol inks with accents added using black, burnt umber or red acrylic ink applied with a skewer, a stylus or simply blown with a rubber puffer to create the spiky tendrils.  Love this technique!

"Rainbow of life"

(The birds are the acrylic ink accent)

"Little bit broken"

(The black tendrils are acrylic ink)

"Dog gins"

(I used a stylus to add the drop shapes 

with red acrylic ink)

"Furry"
(The branch is burnt umber and black acrylic ink and the weird 

shape down the bottom is a striped fluffy chenille

stem that is supposed to represent a caterpillar)

"5 Second rule"

(The tree and roots are burnt umber 

acrylic ink drawn with a skewer

"Not too late"

(Black acrylic ink was drawn across in 3 sections

and then a skewer was used to pull down

sections of it to create the vertical lines)

EMBOSSED CRAYON BACKGROUNDS

These backgrounds have all been done on plain black cardstock using 3D embossing folders.  To add the colour, I have used metallic crayons from the Tim Holtz Crayon sets as well as metallic Gelatos to add a little colour to some of them.  The wet-looking areas are from lightly covering some areas with a clear embossing ink pad, then sprinkling UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) over and flicking off the excess so you get an imperfect coverage. "Tears"

"Full of terrors"

"Picture Not Available"

"Strange smell"(I ummed and ahhhed about this one, but itjust needed to have the hatchet 😏)

"The heart"

"A different path"