Creating and using Acrylic Skins

Hello!

Oh my, I am having such a grand time that I wanted to share it with you today. Many of you already know that I love techniques.  And the best thing ever in my artsy world is when techniques are combined using medium in a new way!  

Craft Stamper’s Take It, Make It Challenge this month is to use any featured technique from a 2014 Craft Stamper magazine.   I chose to try the technique to use acrylic paints and medium to create acrylic skins for use in mixed media/stamped crafts.  The technique tutorial “Skinny Love” is created by Trish Latimer. It is the featured cover photo on the August 2014 magazine and the tutorial feature begins on page 38.

You may be thinking, “What’s an acrylic skin?”  Any acrylic product can be applied to a non-stick surface and left to dry. Once dry it can be peeled off producing a piece of acrylic with no backing. Any acrylic paint, medium, gel or paste can create a skin.  Depending on what combination of acrylic products one chooses the results may differ in opacity or transparency, thickness, sheen, texture and of course color.

This is my first acrylic skin-

close-up photo

See the glass-like look on bottom-right

      

Please see Trish’s tutorial details regarding the details of technique.  I combined Golden’s Fluid acrylic paints-iridescent gold, iridescent pearl white and phthalo blue with Golden’s Clear Tar Gel.  I selected this gel which is known for it’s transparent, glass-like results as well as self-leveling.  It took 2 full days for my acrylic skin to dry and easily release from my craft sheet.

To create the diecut snowflake I sandwiched a piece of the acrylic skin in a folded piece of printer paper to protect it from sticking to the die or plates. Not sure if that is necessary but I left the back paper die cut on the skin to help manipulate the skin into position on my card.  

While working with my transparent skin I realized it could be treated much like clear acetate.  Areas of the skin where there is not paint are transparent allowing the background to show through.  So in the end I decided to adhere the white paper die cut.  The skin can also be painted or stamped on top or bottom for additional layers of interest. 

It is so fascinating to see all the layers that can be developed on a skin including using multiple layers of skin.  But the best part of my first skin is merely looking into the glossy depth at the beautiful swirls of paint.  So this first card I am keeping simple with a stamped embossing folder background.  Tomorrow I will share a tag with another look at a piece of acrylic skin.

Many thanks to Trish Latimer for sharing the wonderful tutorial and opening my eyes to acrylic skins!  Thanks too for sharing your creativity and providing wonderful inspiration!

Next time you reach for acrylic paint I hope you think of making an acrylic skin!

…Jan                                                                                                                   

Moments in the Garden

Welcome back!  Hope you are having a great summer!

Weekly I volunteer at our University's Botanical Gardens. It is only a 13 week assignment since our summers are so short.  But they are glorious weeks as I watch the maturing of each plant in my 2 assigned raised beds. This results in gardening being one of my favorite themes in my creative work.

With this post I am playing in a challenge named after Tim Holtz's Compendium of Curiosities Volume III.   Every 2 weeks a new challenge is selected from the products and techniques shared in the book. Out of respect for Tim each player must use there own copy of the book. Anyone found sharing information will be disqualified. So that is the basics of this challenge. You will find Linda Ledbetter, the challenge coordinator with more details at the link above.

Please let me share how I created my card-

For my background I started with cool peri,wild plum and purple twilight alcohol inks and used Tim's dot fade and burlap stencils. As I look out over the vast botanical gardens the colors blend together so beautifully and that is what I tried to develop here.  Of course I work through many trials until I finally achieved results that matched the picture I had in mind.

I used stamps from Tim Holtz's Stamper's Anonymous collection for the plants, bird and sentiment and stamped with archival ink.  Highlights on the flowers were added with jelly roll pens and a Signo white pen.  I pulled apart a loosely woven ribbon to give the bird a place to rest and to add some subtle texture.

For the base foreground, I upcycled a piece of metal, painted with acrylic paint, embossed with a Tim Holtz embossing folder, added Inka Gold and cut the shape needed.

Thanks to the Curiosities Crew for this week's wonderful inspiration! And another special thanks to Inspiration Emporium and The Funkie Junkie Boutique for sponsoring these challenges!

This is also a reminder "summer" is the theme for this month's challenge over at Mixed Media Card Challenge  until August 25, 11:55 p.m. PDT (GMT -700).

Thanks for stopping in!  Have fun getting your fingers inky!
...Jan

A Card from Scratch

Hello!

This week’s Monday Challenge at Simon Says Stamp is to make something from scratch.  For me  gardening and drying flowers extends our short summer and carries happy memories into our long winter. So I am very excited to start in my garden to create this card from scratch.  I select the best flowers and plants for their size, color and quality to make the card. I use a microwave flower press to quickly dry the plant material. For this challenge I decided to incorporate watercolor, acrylic paints and stamping with the 2 dried flowers and fern.  Here is my card created from scratch.

 

   

The image background is started with a watercolor technique.  After the background is dry I ink a background script stamp and stamped it off onto scrap paper and then onto the watercolor background.  To create some additional interest I ink a flower blossom stamp with white acrylic paint and stamp the subtle image onto the background then completely dry it. 

Each dried piece is laid into place for a final layout check.  I put a small amount of gel medium on the background to adhere the flower and then a small amount on my finger I very delicately rub it on the front of each petal from the center to the outer tip of the petal. Hooray, the gel medium did not react with the watercolor background. Then I use a white pen to color in accents on the stamped image and add a flower stock.  

For my card base I used a high quality paper for acrylic paint to create a metallic and iridescent background.  I start by covering the paper with a black paint and after drying I sponge on metallic silver and repeat additional layers of black and silver iridescent paints, drying between each layer. 

This project is also a reminder of the new Mixed Media Card Challenge #1 .  I am on their design team and encourage you to consider entering before the deadline of July 25, 11:55 p.m. PDT (GMT -700).                                        

Happy inky moments!...Jan

 

Supplies

Stamps: Stampendous Agapanthus background flower;  Hero Arts Cherish Yesterday

Paper: Arches white wove, Tim Holtz watercolor paper

Acrylic Paint: Golden fluid acrylic carbon black, metallic sparkle and silver iridescent  

Inks: Archival Black and Watering Can; Kaleidacolor multicolor, Uniball Signo white pen, Micron Archival Ink Pen

Other Supplies:  Golden Soft Gel Medium and Microfleur flower press