Playtime - Spraying Pigments

9:08 AM

Watercolor sprayed through a stencil
Words and hard lines created with gel pens
Click to enlarge
I saw an image (second image down on the post) on a blog the other day that captivated my imagination. I asked the owner of the blog how she created the image. The owner was none other than Sammie Kari of the Journal Girl blog. She answered right away with details and offered to do a video tutorial for me—you gotta love that! And she did. Here is the link to check it out.

Sammi used Adirondack Color Wash sprays to create her image. Not having any of those and really, really, really not wanting to add to my overloaded studio, I decided to see what would happen if I used watercolor and water in a sprayer/mister.

It worked great!

The only thing different I noticed was that achieving a level of color saturation that was comparable to the Adirondack sprays was difficult. My design is a bit on the light side. Altering my choice of pigments to a darker valued pigment or doing multiple layers of color, letting each dry, would also work. I think using a stencil with more complexity would also have helped.

In the image above, I used a teal blue and a light yellowish green. I would spray the stencil, pick it up, wipe it off*, and then reposition and spray again. After I was done with the stencil and the work had dried, I worked some of the green into the background. Later, after everything had dried, I doodled the words, and then added some lines to emphasize some of the swirls.

*In the video, Sammi shows how to use the ink/watercolor on the stencil to "print" a negative on another page—wish I'd of thought of that as I was doing my image!

I have no doubt this idea will be showing up in my work again soon as it was great fun and adds an interesting element to the page.

Now it's your turn to go play and have some fun!

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6 Creative Thought(s)

  1. Art journalers are awesome! Looks like a fun technique.

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  2. What a wonderful idea. Loved it!
    Ana from Brazil

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  3. Love it--I also keep meaning to tell you I love the header you have up here for spring, Laure!

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  4. What I neat idea! I have use a brush before to apply the watercolor but it is too wet and seeps under the stencils. I will give this a try. Thanks for sharing!

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  5. I'll have to give this a try. I don't want to go buy more stuff either so when I get home from my trip I'll try putting watercolor into a spray bottle and try it out. I think yours is plenty colorful and nice looking.

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  6. Hi darling!

    Here are a few alternatives I've tried:

    1. Liquitex Ink! in a spray bottle, with a little water added will give you great color saturation. You can find a bottle online at Jerry's Artarama for around $3.80 a bottle, and it'll last a long time!

    2. Food coloring! This you shouldn't have to water down!

    3. A friend uses fabric spray in her journals, and it works great!

    Just a few more ideas for you! I love experimenting with new things, and now think I may try some watercolor in a bottle!

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