Spring Colors With the Steps

I started this piece a few months back

and am just now getting back to it.

Let me walk you through the making of it.

One night I had a short window of time to work with, so I decided to set up a few backgrounds to tangle on later.  I really, really love everything I know about Stillman & Birn. Their sketchbooks are wonderful! Heavyweight pages, smooth surfaces, a sturdy cover, and they come in a range of styles. My favorite is the Zeta Series. 180 lb. paper, smooth surface, natural white. Does well with a lot of water/wet media.

 So I used my Zeta series 6" x 8" sketchbook.

I began by placing paper under the page to

keep any wet/color from bleeding/running

onto the next page.

Good thing, too, because I decided to make the next page hot pink!

I spritzed the whole page with water,

then used two colors of Dylusions Ink Sprays.

I sprayed Vibrant Turquoise and Lemon Zest on top

of water and let the colors start running.

Don't worry about that little curving of the paper.

It settles down flat as the inks dry.

 Then I sprayed more water and tilted the sketchbook

from side to side, and back and forth

to get the colors mixing and covering the page.

One trick I've learned is this: 

where you have little specks of color, little dots that

spray out to the sides of your color shot,

spritz some water onto those blank areas

and you will be surprised how much color is actually

there that you don't really see with the eye.

This will give you some lighter areas of color.

And wherever you have too much color, or the color is too dark, 

or you are starting to get concerned about mud,

blot it with a paper towel and lift some of that color.

I keep a roll on my work table.

Actually I buy the pack of 12 rolls from Wal-Mart when they are on sale.

 This is what I ended up with. 

Remember I just used two colors on this page,

yet I see yellows, blue, turquoise, a darker blue,

pale green, spring green, and darker green -

all from the two colors I started with.

I love Dylusions Ink Sprays!

 An important thing to remember is these colors are not watersafe. If you use wet media on top of this page, the colors may very well start moving and blending again. As long as you remember this, you can work with it. It really isn't that big a problem.

To start building my page, I used two stamps strategically placed.

Hahaha! What was my strategy? 

I had no idea. I just like these two particular stamps.

 Then I set the sketchbook aside for a couple months while I worked on other things. Two nights ago I picked it back up and added these tangles. Just look for pops of colors, sections, blobs, areas, whatever you want to call them and add tangles in those sections. I started with the larger circles - the Frankles calls them balls - and made three sections with those. Fleurette, cruffle, kuke, and my own matahari. Then I added some bubbles, tipple, and printemps around them.

Last night I kept adding in those sections of primtemps, bubbles, and tipple, connecting them to the three sections of balls, tieing all those sections together. I even added a free-floating section over the butterfly. Did a little shading and I'm done. Super easy piece to make, the colors are awesome, and I'm happy with it! A nice mixed media looking piece created with ink spray and a Sharpie fine point. Just those two things. Nice spring colors make me smile! And you can so totally do this yourself!