tEchNiQuE TuEsdaY: Dye Ink Resist

Even though there are so many fabulous patterned papers out there, I still love making my own…especially when I can create something unique and artistic in 20 minutes or less!

If you are a regular visitor of Technique Tuesday’s, you have probably realized that my techniques are a little out of the ordinary…and this one is no different! Just when you think that this technique seems normal, I throw in a last step that will seem quite strange. But there is always a method to my madness…and here it is: the last step requires you to iron the painted cardstock in between two pieces of newsprint (or bond paper) to remove the shiny embossed look of the stamped design. This last step is not absolutely necessary for a beautiful finished design, however, it will make your design look like it’s been computer generated or professionally printed!

Also, please note that newsprint is not newspaper…we don’t want any ink on this! Newsprint is the cheap, thin tan art paper that children color on…it can be purchased quite inexpensively at art or craft stores. You can also use regular bond paper…just make sure to keep moving the iron around so that you don’t burn the paper!

Here’s a few tips about blending colors:
- choose analogous colors (colors that are next to each other on the color wheel) for easy blending (if you don’t have red/pink/orange/yellow, then try blue/green/yellow)
- work from darkest color (magenta) to lightest color (yellow)
- pick a “bridge” color, i.e., a color that can blend or bridge two other colors togehter. I’ve used yellow as the “bridge” color because it blends easily with magenta, scarlet and orange.

supplies:
glossy cardstock
foam or rubber stamps
watermark ink: Versamark
clear embossing powder
heat gun
dye inks reinkers (dye inks in a bottle)
paintbrush
paper towels
wax paper
water
newsprint or regular bond paper
iron

step 1. Stamp designs with watermark (Versamark) ink on glossy cardstock. Sprinkle clear embossing powder and set with heat gun (no photo because it’s hard to see the versamark stamped flowers on white glossy cardstock!)

step 2. Squeeze a few drops of each ink onto wax paper. Dip paintbrush in water; lightly blot on paper towel so brush is damp but not dripping wet. Dab brush in first ink color and then dab onto cardstock, using a slight pouncing motion as the brush moves around a small area. Notice that the ink resists the embossed areas; the ink will stain and bead up a little giving the look of a watercolor. Repeat in three or four areas on the cardstock as shown.

step 3. Clean brush well with water; you are now ready to apply the next color. Dip brush in water; lightly blot on paper towel. Dab brush in second ink color and then dab on cardstock in a few areas as shown…DO NOT apply ink right next to the first color!

step 4. Repeat step 3 with third color.

TIP: Change your water at this point to keep your yellows pure.

step 5. Apply the last colors, the yellows, next to the first color applied in the same fashion that you have the others except the yellow is applied in between the other colors, sort of like a bridge between two colors. Apply the yellow in the available white space and then overlap some of it into the other colors…the results are layered and blended and quite beautiful! TIP: Make sure to clean your brush every time you blend colors together!!! Set aside to dry.

step 6. After the inks are dry, rub a damp Q-tip or paper towel over areas of the stamped design that has ink spots on it.

You can omit this last step if you like the shiny embossed designs…If you don’t want the shiny designs, then do step 7.

step 7. Preheat iron. Place the cardstock in between two pieces of newsprint or regular bond paper (see photo 7a). Iron over newsprint until you begin to see areas of the newsprint becoming transparent (see photo 7b). Keep ironing until you can lift the top sheet of newsprint off the cardstock without it sticking.

completed technique:

Aventures in Creating Without Fear…Week #5 Exercise

my Incomplete Manifesto, created July 2005

Fear of the Unknown…Week #5 Exercise
Throughout my life, I’ve found that there are certain methodologies that I revisit time and again for personal and/or creative inspiration, motivation and growth. One such methodology is Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. I posted about this prolific designer’s Manifesto back in June 2005, and then again in January 2006, because it resonnates so deep within me.

What is An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth? Simply put, it is a list of 43 ideas to incite change…to move one beyond simply thinking differently into doing differently. I highly suggest taking the time to read Bruce’s Manifesto…each and every idea is a golden nugget within itself, worthy of discussion and exploration.

So what does this have to do with Creating without Fear™ and specifically, fear of the unknown? Well, one of the ways we can “become true”, combat our creative fears, and grow as an artist, is by defining our creative goals, intentions and truisms. Something magical happens when we take the time to write down our principles and beliefs and place them in front of us to see every day…they not only become more ingrained in us, but we find that we are more likely to act according to them which in the big picture, helps alleviate fear and anxiety when it comes to making decisions.

Week #5 Exercise
This week’s exercise is to write your own Manifesto. A manifesto is defined as a public declaration of intentions; whether you make it public or not is up to you (mine is posted above). I do suggest displaying your Manifesto somewhere around your workspace where it is clearly visible. Whether you integrate your Manifesto with a favorite art medium or simply compose it as a list, I really encourage you to do this!!! Think of it as an opportunity to draw your own roadmap for personal creative development…

Here’s a few tips to get you started:
1. Have patience…don’t worry about compiling an entire list in one sitting; give yourself time to collect your thoughts and ruminate about what is important to you.
2. Stay open…there’s no specific number your Manifest has to have. Bruce Mau calls his manifesto “incomplete” for a reason…he believes in leaving room for growth as well as the fact that we are incomplete human beings constantly evolving and changing. I’ve started with 9; he wrote 43! Leave yourself room for adding more!
3. Look to yourself…think about the principles and truisms that motivate and define you in other areas of your life. Add personal content to your manifesto with your favorite quotes, inspirational music lyrics or meaningful literary passages.
4. Go with the flow…If you’re not sure what your goals are, no worries, they will come in time. Just don’t be surprised if they turn out to be different than what you thought they would be!

Adventures in Creating Without Fear: Week #5

Fear of the Unknown, Part 3
I’ve had such a hard time deciding what to write about for this week’s post…Should I just focus on last week’s exercise, or should I report about the hellatious fear-ridden week I struggled through…but then how can I leave out the amazing, fear-defying David Blaine? I’m afraid to make a decision, so I’ll touch on all three…

So, did you see the David Blaine special last night, “Drowned Alive”? Talk about facing fears…this man eats my grandiose fears for breakfast and by lunch, he’s moved on to burying himself alive or chewing glass!

While it may seem like such a ridiculously extreme comparison, i.e., his physical fears (being drowned alive) vs. our creative fears (what colors should I work with?) we can definitely be inspired by this man because I don’t think it’s the size of our fears that makes us different, but rather how much fear is relevant to our lives. David Blaine was undoubtedly born with a certain amount of courage that ordinary people like you and I have to work hard at to even comprehend. But what is really fascinating about David’s courage is that it is balanced by a sense of humanity and humility…his immense belief in other people and his motivations for doing what he does. David truly believes that no matter how much fear we hold within us, each of us can do more than we think we can…and his goal is simply to inspire others to do more than they think they can. I loved that he interviewed Aron Ralston, the young man who amputated his own arm to save his life…and that he called him a magician of life.

A Magician of Life…cool. But aren’t we all magicians of our lives…each and every one of us who does something that we didn’t think we could do the day before? I think so…because it’s not like fear is ever going to go away for good; every single day we have to find the courage to keep fighting our fears. A new day, a new fear; worse than those last 10 pounds because at some point, with a lot of work, determination and lack of carbohydrates, the pounds may go away. Fear won’t.

Speaking of which, this past week I came to realize just how many fears I’ve let keep me from moving forward with my life. I thought I had a pretty good and accurate account of my fears…but tricky little devils that they are, underneath many of them, guess what I found? Yep…like socks from behind the dryer, I found more fear!!!

It’s a very humbling experience to look at all the ways we hold ourselves back or sabotage ourselves because we tend to feel even more hopeless; on top of the realization, we are disappointed with ourselves for feeling weak…giving in to the fear. What I’m trying to do is look at this new information as “valuable” information instead of just more information to add to my already long list.

Anyhow, because of this new “valuable information”, I decided to take a few uncharacteristic chances this past week; one personal the other professional. One ended up a disaster and the other…well, I’m still waiting to see the final outcome. But before you cringe on behalf of my mortifying experience, let me say that while I did look at the disastrous outcome, wag my own finger and say to myself, “See, you knew you shouldn’t have done that…”, I didn’t say it for very long. I mean seriously, I made a mistake…big deal! No human loss was suffered, I didn’t mess up plans for world peace or even prevent Oprah’s show from airing…so really, how big of a deal could it be? Not that big when I take into consideration that all I did was risk being human. I mean, as humans, no matter how safe we think we’re keeping ourselves, isn’t it an inevitable law of nature that we are going to make mistakes, overreact, look stupid, say the wrong things…and maybe have to eat a few slices of humble pie? If so, then I have to look on the bright side and admit that I did an excellent job of being human last week. Who knows what I’ll do this week…

Fear of the unknown…makes you cringe, doesn’t it? Not knowing what is going to happen is never easy, but it’s really loaded when the unknown happens because of a decision we do or don’t make!

Speaking of which, I made the decision for last week’s exercise (Week #4 Exercise), to post a piece of art and ask for only constructive criticism. Why did I do this? I’m so glad that you asked…

• I did it because I wanted to post something I did that I thought was UGLY!
• I did it because I wanted to know that I could sit and endure the unknown…i.e., critical comments (what was the worst that could be said???)
• I did it because I wanted each of you to challenge yourself to speak your mind and not apologize for your opinion (because after all, I asked…)
• I did it because I think there’s so much more value to an honest comment, good or bad, than one full of fluff!
• I did it because even though I thought the art was really unattractive, I still wanted to see what I could learn from it.
• I did it because I knew how I felt about this piece of art and I wanted to see if I would get defensive to the criticism (which would show me that I wasn’t open to learning).

When you first saw the art and read the instructions, did you ask yourself, “why the heck would she post something so ugly?” I wouldn’t blame you if you had…because I questioned myself for quite awhile until I became clear as to the motivations behind the exercise.

The really cool thing about last week’s exercise is that it turned out to be mutually beneficial. Every single comment left was truly appreciated and I‘ll tell you why…(1) because of the courage I know it took to risk leaving your honest opinions, and (2) because in all honesty (and I mean this in the nicest way…) whatever you wrote is YOUR opinion, not necessarily MY REALITY. It’s only my reality and only becomes hurtful if I want to look at it that way…I mean, I may put a lot of myself into my art, but I AM NOT MY ART. If you don’t like my art, it does not mean you don’t like ME! and (3) the fact is, what most of you said was TRUE to me too!!!

I mean really, how many times are we asked for an honest opinion and then punished because we told the TRUTH…our truth!!! When it comes to our art, it’s vitally important that we separate ourselves from what we create in order for us to grow as artists. When we can truly separate “who we are” from “what we create” and see our work in a a different light, even through the eyes of another, we open ourselves up to learning and therefore growth.

Please understand that there is a huge difference between “seeing” it through the eyes of another and “feeling” it through the eyes of another. To see our art through the eyes of another is not to change our opinion of what we personally feel about what we’ve created, but rather to open our eyes as to the possibilities of creating and seeing it in a different way! I can’t tell you how many times I hear a first response to collage art as “I don’t like doing it”. After hearing this a number of times, I began asking questions, and I found that nine times out of ten, when asked “why?”, the answer was “because I don’t know how to do it” or “it looks too hard” or “I’m not good at it.” Since when should “hard” or “I don’t know how to” determine whether we try something new? Hmmmm…sounds like another example of “fear of the unknown” to me.

Which brings me to this week’s exercise…I’m not exactly clear on it yet (flying without a map…into the unknown!); my goal is to have the exercise posted on Thursday or Friday, so please check back! In the meantime, think about looking for the good in something you’ve created that you’re not all that happy with…and as always, your comments and questions are appreciated and welcomed (positive or negative this week!!!).

Adventures in Creating Without Fear: Week #4

Last week’s exercise ended with a series of questions…including this one:

Similar to the other questions I’ve asked, there is no right or wrong answer; whatever you come up with is your answer, your truth. Besides that, there isn’t just “one” answer! I think that depending upon the time in our lives that this question is asked, the answers would vary. If I were to take a tongue-in-cheek guess and even generalize as to a few possible answers, I think they would look something like this:

Since the answer to this question varies from person to person, I think it truly speaks to our fear of the unknown because if we’re not sure what we’re afraid of, then the very idea of making a mistake — any kind of mistake — becomes larger than life.

As creating individuals, we have more than our share of potential mistakes just waiting to be made…from the simple choice of what colors to use to the more daunting and painful decisions about who to trust in our chosen industry.

Week #4 Exercise: Becoming True
One of the biggest unknowns we artists are faced with early on, is not knowing whether our work is “good”. When we are unsure of the work we do, i.e., whether it is “good”, our anxiety and doubt can paralyze us and prevent us from moving forward and creating to our fullest potential. How ironic that when we are anxious and tense about creating “ugly”, we are more likely to create what we fear…UGLY!!!

But back to this week’s exercise…knowing inside of us whether our work is “good” is part of what I call “Becoming True”. “Becoming True” is something that needs to happen before “Staying True” which to me, is one of the biggest ways we can combat our fears. Becoming True means being honest…with yourself and with others. Staying True is solidifying our beliefs by taking action when we need to.

Below you will find a piece of art; the directions for the exercise are very simple and should only take a few minutes.

Need some help? here’s a few starters:
I don’t like (insert something specific).
This piece does not appeal to me because (insert something specific).
I think that (insert something specific) would look better if (insert something specific).

Wondering how this ties in with “fear of the unknown”? You’ll see…In the meantime, thanks for coming along!

tEchNiQuE TuEsdaY…on Spring Break!!!

Spring is in the air…I’ve got a few great projects to work on…and the kids are home from school for a few weeks!!! Which means that I’ll be taking a few weeks off from my Technique Tuesday’s…

I’ll still be posting on other days…and stay tuned…I’ve got plans for something new on the horizon!!!

Photo Doodles!

Add an artistic element to a plain or boring background of a photo…use a white paint pen (I’ve found the Sharpie oil-based paint marker is best) or a heat tool (Creative Hot Marks by Walnut Hollow) to engrave a design (shown above).

http://www.kellyangard.com

tEchNiQuE TuEsdaY: Urban Art Influence – Part 3 Custom Stencil Designs

I have had so much fun integrating the artistic characteristics of Urban Street Art into my own art these past few weeks. I have come to respect Street Art as a dynamic form of artistic expression, many times representative of the socio-economic and political life where it is found…this genre of art can’t help but make a statement! Street Artists, or “writers”, make their bold artistic statements with vibrant colors and expressive images. Many of these images are either adhered (“wheat pasted”) or they are stenciled onto surfaces and integrated into layers of colors.

Custom made stencils are a huge part of the Urban Street Art process; most are created from photographic images or from hand-drawn designs. There are a number of websites that feature downloadable stencil images; one of the best I’ve found is Stencilry. I downloaded a very simple stencil from Stencilry to demonstrate this week’s technique. The city skyline (see below) is a great stencil to work with because it can be cut with scissors if you’re not comfortable using with a craft knife and it doesn’t take alot of time to prepare.

Before showing the steps for this technique, I’m going to demonstrate something that I haven’t shown before…my practice samples. I photographed my three practice samples so you could see that i don’t just talk the talk, i walk the walk! This is one technique in which I really encourage you to practice before trying on your layout; it will only take you a few minutes using whatever stencil you’d like to use and a few scrap pieces of cardstock.


1st practice…with stencil in place
Notice that the heaviest part of the spray paint is at the top of the design…I started spraying above the cutting edge of the design because I wanted the paint to be the heaviest there and then i slowly moved the paint can down and lifted it away from the cardstock so the spray would become less concentrated and give me the fade i was hoping for.

1st practice…pretty good for a first try; i achieved the fade I wanted, but i’d like the top of the buildings to be darker. I do like the dark spray spots that I got by holding the can a little close and putting only light pressure on the nozzle.
2nd practice…i kept the can a little closer to the cardstock and held it over the top area of the stencil just a few seconds longer which resulted in the darker coverage at the top of the buildings but I still want more coverage at the top of the buildings so I’m going to try it again and keep the can over that area a little longer. Also, I didn’t get as many dark spray spots as i would have liked to so I will make sure to hold the can closer when applying light pressure.
3rd practice…PERFECT! The buildings are darker and I’ve got more of a contrast in the fade…I also played around with applying slight pressure on the nozzle to get more spray spots! Now I can spray onto my collaged background with confidence….and all it took was 5 minutes!

supplies:
cardstock
images (see stencil source above)
spray adhesive
spray paint (Krylon)

step #1. & step #2

step #1. Size and print stencil design onto cardstock
step #2. Cut stencil with craft knife

step #3. & step #4

step #3. Lightly spray back of stencil with adhesive and place over background
step #4. PAINT! I used spray paint here because I wanted to create a spray-paint fade with spotting…but you can use a sponge and acrylic paint or inks depending upon the look you want to achieve.

What I like about this technique is that there is room for imperfection…meaning that it doesn’t have to be executed perfectly for it to look good. The lines don’t have to be cut perfectly straight and the paint doesn’t have to be perfectly applied for it to look good. I call these kinds of techniques in my book, “Perfectly Imperfect” because I like having the freedom to not feel like I have to do “perfect” all the time. And when I am unable to give myself the room to not do “perfect”, these techniques encourage me to just let go and have fun…

hints:
- protect your surfaces from spray paint buy painting over a pile of tissue paper; I use it instead of newspaper because it’s cheap, i can remove the top layer and throw it away, and i don’t get newsprint on my hands which can easily smudge onto my artwork!
- notice how I combined the the techniques learned over the past two Technique Tuesdays (spray paint & high contrast images) with this week’s technique…have fun and make it your own!!!

I will be posting more about custom-made stencils tomorrow, along with some great resources I’ve found on my art blog, The Crafty-Girl…