Tuesday 27 January 2015

Creative Palette Backgrounds, part one

 


Good morning, Kirsten here, I hope you all enjoyed the weekend. Today's blog post is quite a long one, so I've decided to split it in two & I'll show you the finished cards on Friday.
 
Months ago, I got the Stampendous Creative Palette from Lisa & it has sat on my craft table ever since, waiting for me to do something with it. As I've been making lots of backgrounds this month, I thought I would have a play, using Versacolor inks.  
 
What Stampendous says:
 
"The Creative Palette from Stampendous, is a monoprinting plate that will allow you to create an infinite variety of backgrounds and textures for your mixed media canvases, art journals, scrapbook pages, cards, home decor and other projects.
An indispensable tool, it allows you to use acrylic paints, inks and other mediums together with stamps, textures and tools to create a unique impression every time.
Palette measures 8.25ins x 10.75ins."
 
When you take it out of the packet, you remove one of the acetate covers - make sure you keep the cover for when you've finished. The palette is very thin, only a few millimetres thick & it's very flexible, so put it on a smooth surface, I used my craft sheet. It's sturdy, but also slightly soft & sticky - like gelatin in fact. Keep sharp objects well away from it!
 
I chose the brightest Versacolor inks I had for the first layer; Boysenberry, Turquoise & Ash Rose & swiped them randomly over the palette. Then I laid a piece of 90gsm copy paper on top. The first time I did this I used a brayer over the copy paper, but the ink didn't transfer particularly well, so I reapplied the inks, stamped onto them with Split Pea Versacolor, using a stamp from the Hobby Art 'Anna's Collection - Just For You' stamp set & rubbed over the paper with my hand.
 
This was the first print, palette on the left, paper on the right...........
 

 
 
I added more stamping, using Hobby Art's Decorative Backgrounds set & more Versacolor inks - Heliotrope, Orange, Cyan............

 
Here's a close-up of the stamping............

 
 
You can see there's still a lot of ink on the palette, but by now it was dry (but not permanent). Afterwards, I thought that I could have spritzed water onto it & pulled another print, so I shall try that another day.
 
The next step was stencilling. I used white Versacolor through the Imagination Crafts Wall stencil.........


 
This was only slightly visible on the print......
 
- Remember you can click on the photos to enlarge them -
 

 
 
I added some final stamping with black Versacolor, which faded to a dark grey on the print.............

 
 
I decided that would be the final step & here's the finished piece, I like that you can still see each layer of stamping & stencilling...........
 
 
 
 
To show you how different the colours are I took another piece of the 90gsm paper & applied the inks directly to it, following each step as above. This is the result.............
 

 
 
I definitely prefer the paler version, but this one has possibilities & I'll show you the cards I made with both of these pieces on Friday.
 
The palette cleaned up very easily. Even though the first layer of ink was dry, it came off immediately with both water & baby wipe. I did think that residue from the baby wipe might affect the palette, so I sprayed plenty of water on it & used a soft cloth to dry it.
 
Do cover the palette with the acetate sheet & put it back in its packaging as soon as you're finished using it. I left mine on the side of the table for a little while & it picked up debris very easily. It was easy to remove the debris, but if something sticks permanently to the palette you will lose that smooth surface.
 
In conclusion, I can only say that I need to use the Creative Palette a lot more before I can decide if I like it. I wasn't impressed by how quickly the ink dried on it. I did try Adirondack inks & the first colour was dry by the time I put a third one on, so that was no use - and I know Adirondacks can be used on the Gelli Plate, which is much thicker than the Palette, so I'm guessing that has something to do with it.
 
I need to use it with paint & try to build more layers, so I shall attempt something for next month's projects.
 
Until Friday, happy crafting.
 
Kirsten












1 comment:

  1. Think you'd be happier with paints (acrylics) for this technique rather than inks which dry too quickly because they are applied in a thin layer. With inks, huffing would work but it's too large a surface. Spraying is worth a try though. In any case love how you built your layers.

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