Art Journaling with Stencils and Acrylic Skins

Hi all! It's Gwen, back again with my quarterly Paint & Texture column. This month we're going to explore just a few of the many ways that you can use your stencils with acrylic skins and incorporate them into your projects.

For this month's project, I've used a few of my stencil designs and two different types / methods of making acrylic skins to create a layered and textured page in my art journal.

I've put together a little tutorial to show you how to create the acrylic skin layers on this page. Ready to get started?

For the first type of skin, I used one that was created organically over time... that's right, I peeled it right off of my paint palette. I have a tendency to let the bits of acrylic paint left over on my palette build up until they create a nice solid skin, then I peel it off and store it in a folder in between layers of wax paper. For the first technique, I chose a skin that was thick enough to hold together when I cut pieces out of it, but not so thick that I would have trouble getting a blade through the dried paint. 

I stenciled my Art Deco Bookplates stencil onto the skin with black Archival Ink and a blender brush, deliberately allowing the design to go off the edges - I wanted something that would have a naturally ragged border.

Next I used a craft knife with a fresh, sharp blade and carefully cut out the pieces of the stenciled design that I wanted to remove. I used a glass cutting mat for this part... partly because the acrylic skin sticks to it a bit which kept it in place while I was cutting, partly because I get less drag against the mat when I'm cutting than I do with a self-healing mat, which makes for quicker and cleaner cuts and less tearing of the acrylic skin. Just take your time and go slowly and carefully, making sure to keep your fingers out of the path of the blade.

With my stenciled design cut out of the paint skin, I pulled out my art journal. I had a page in the journal where I had stenciled with my Collage Textures and Patterns - Leaves stencil - both the repeating pattern and also some of the leaves in the center and along the edges of the page. (Those are colored with Posca colored pencils.)

I positioned my skin where I wanted it and adhered it by collaging with Golden Soft Gel Matte medium. I used a traditional collage method; I coated the page where I was going to adhere it, then the back of the skin, and then a coat over top after it was adhered. I used wax paper to press the skin down and make sure the extra gel medium came out the sides and was cleaned up and that the skin was flat and firmly adhered.

The first skin is fairly thin - you can see some of the texture and dimension in the photo above, but I wanted to amp it up with more layers from a second and different type of acrylic skin.

This skin I made from scratch. I put a fairly thick layer of Golden Molding Paste on a non-stick sheet and let it dry for about two days (it may take less time depending on the climate - it's quite humid here in Virginia, so thick coats of acrylic take a while to dry.) Once it was close to dry, I coated the top of it with Golden Matte Pouring Medium to matte down the surface and also counter any brittleness that I might get from the molding paste. When it was totally dry, it peeled right off my Teflon sheet.

I wanted to use this skin to make some leaves, so I pulled out a mix of regular and pearlescent Alcohol Inks and splattered leafy colors all over the skin, then let it dry completely.

From here I took my Collage Textures and Patterns - Leaves stencil again and stenciled some of the larger leaves on my inked up acrylic skin.

I cut the leaves out and then used a black Posca pen and a gold marker to go over the black lines and close the bridges from the stencil and edge the leaves with gold to cover up the white. This skin was about 1/16" thick, so the white edges would definitely show from the sides if I didn't cover them in some way.

I used Tacky Glue to add the leaves onto my art journal page, cut off the edges where they hung over, and then went back over with the gold pen again to cover the white. I also used a black Stabilo All pencil and a water brush to add some additional depth and shading and to really highlight the dimension from the skins.

With the background done and all of my acrylic skins adhered, I wanted to add a more definitive focal point so I pulled out my Christmas Cardinal and Holly stencil. I stenciled the bird onto a very thin sheet of handmade cotton paper (15gsm, so extremely thin and delicate) using red Archival Ink and a blender brush. You could also use tissue, rice, or mulberry paper to get a similar effect.

To color my cardinal, I knew that I wanted a semi-translucent paint. Watercolor and gouache are great, but can still be water soluble and I knew I was going to collage this onto my page so I needed something permanent. You could use translucent acrylic paints, but I have this amazing Holbein Acryla Gouache which acts like gouache when wet, but is permanent like acrylics once dry. I used a few colors of the Acryla to paint my cardinal - I wanted it to be at least a bit translucent so that the stenciled details would still show through. (You just use the tiniest dot of Acryla Gouache and then mix with water and you get more than enough.)

Once my cardinal was totally dry, I tore the edges of the paper from around the bird and then collaged it onto my art journal page with matte medium. Then I used my Stabilo All pencil and water brush again to add a bit more shading.

Voilà! My finished page. 

I love using acrylic skins in my art journal because I can get really obvious differences in texture and dimension without adding significant bulk or weight to the page. Here you can get a good look at how much dimension there really is:

Of course, you can also add acrylic skins into your mixed media canvases and panels, use them in assemblage work, and add them to cards or even scrapbook layouts - they're incredibly versatile.

That's it for today's post... I hope you enjoyed the project and tutorial and that you're feeling inspired to peel some paint off of your palette or make your own skins and try using them to add layers and texture into your own artwork.

Until next time, happy stenciling!

Gwen

(PS... don't forget to check out my live online workshops! I have three more this year.)

Collage Cairns with Dar James

Hello! I’m Dar James, a painter and GOLDEN Artist Educator, living in eastern PA. Today I’m sharing what I hope you find to be a relaxing, “zen-like” project that celebrates cairns, or rock stacks. Cairns are human-made piles or stacks of rocks that have had navigational, spiritual, religious, cultural and decorative significance since ancient times. One of the things I like best about cairns is that, when I encounter one in the world, I think of another human making it for the enjoyment and delight of a stranger, and this fills me with a sweet kind of hope.

I’m also going to show you to something really cool that you can do with stencils that have a CIRCLE theme and go along so well with the idea of collage cairns…stenciling acrylic skins! Acrylic skins can be created with either Heavy Body or Fluid acrylic paints, as well as a wide array of acrylic mediums and gels. Once dry, they are fabulous to cut into shapes and use in a variety of collage and mixed media work.

Supply List at my Amazon Storefront: https://tinyurl.com/yxv7mhbg

To get started, you will need page protectors, acrylic paints and a palette knife. The page protectors will allow the skins to be peeled off once they are dry. Other kinds of plastic do not work as well.

I like to insert a piece of paper inside my page protector, with the “recipe” I am using written underneath the area it will be spread. You can be very inventive with colors, mediums and various specialty gels and pastes when creating skins. Experiment and see what happens!

For my Heavy Body skin, here, I am using GOLDEN’s Light Violet. For the Fluid skin, I am using GOLDEN’s Cobalt Blue with a bit of Titanium White. Squeeze or spread the paint onto the page protector and use enough of it to get a nice, thick application. If you make the layer too thin, it may tear when taking it off after drying. Depending on the thickness of your paint, temperature and humidity, skins can take 24+ hours to fully dry. Let them dry completely in a place where they will not be disturbed. Make several, using different colors and different thicknesses. Try things like not mixing your paints completely to have subtle swirls or adding paint to mediums to get more translucent effects. The sky is really the limit on these!

Once they are completely dry, carefully peel them off the page protectors and place onto a work surface. Then, use stencils to create pattern, texture and color on your skins!

Here I am using cut outs from Stone and Pebble Tilings with light blue fluid acrylic on a dark blue skin applied with a make-up sponge.

This is orange heavy body acrylic on a green skin with a slanted stencil brush, again with a section from Stone and Pebble Tilings.

This is metallic acrylic spray paint on a black skin with a lovely, delicate design called Puddles.

And, here, is magenta spray paint on an orange skin with a stencil called Organized Chaos.

You can also use mediums with color to create raised, acrylic patterns on your skins. For this mixture, I’ve used Soft Gel Gloss with Heavy Body Micaceous Iron Oxide. (If you have not experimented with MIO, it is some of the coolest paint ever!) Press your stencil onto a dry acrylic skin and then, with a palette knife, spread the mixture carefully and gently over the top. Scrape off any extra (which you can use to create another skin!) so that you do not have big blobs of paint. This design is Organic Zen Circles.

Carefully peel up the stencil to reveal the pattern in relief! Set aside to dry fully.

Once your skins are completely dry, you can use them for collage and mixed media work. Be sure to store your skins so that they don’t touch each other or fold onto themselves. They will stick and be very hard to separate. Parchment or “deli” paper works well between them, or leave them on their page protectors and stack separately.

Use Pinterest to explore different cairn designs and configurations. Get out the skins and papers that inspire you for this project and lay them out around your substrate. Here I am using a 4x8” Cradled Birch panel by DaVinci, but you could use any kind of substrate that strikes your fancy—paper, canvas, even a wood round would be interesting. I have taped off the edges with blue, painter’s tape because I like them clean, but you could leave them open and paint them as well if you prefer. The panel is primed with black gesso because I love the way that black peeks out beneath just about any color, but you can prime with white too.

I’m using a variety of whites and off-whites to create a dry-brush background that is “quiet.” Because the skins and paper I am using are patterned, I want a background that is less busy so that it doesn’t compete with my design. Also added is a tiny bit of GOLDEN’s Iridescent Pearl with Starlight Mini. Whenever you use iridescent or iridescent colors within your layers, they add luminescence and light to your work! Pearl is one of my favorites because it can be used as-is, diluted, or tinted with any color for amazing shine and glimmer.

Last, but not least, I’m adding an ethereal bit of detail with and GOLDEN’s Titan Green Pale. GOLDEN makes a line of “pales” that are absolutely wonderful for subtle color hints on whites and neutrals—or just about any color, really.

You can work from a photo to create a design that resonates with you, or make up your own. Jump in and begin cutting your rock shapes! Think about what color, size and shape arrangements reveal your own personal sense of balance. Avoid adhering anything just yet and know that if something doesn’t look quite right, you can remove it and save it for another project. You can even work on more than one at a time and create a series.

When you have a design you are happy with, use Soft Gel Gloss or Matte to adhere your pieces by brushing some down beneath the shape, placing the shape and then brushing more on top. Finish the piece with dots and detail if you’d like and, when that is dry, add another coat of soft gel—a palette knife can be helpful to make it even and smooth.

I used a gloss gel to adhere, but my final layer was a matte finish. Details were done with fluid acrylics and “nail art” dot tools.

Square substrates offer different ways of designing your cairns.

Cool and warm colors have different vibes!

One of my favorite ways to finish these is with a coat of shiny, resin. (ArtResin)

Wouldn’t these collage cairns be fabulous in a collection or as a soothing gift for someone special? I hope you have fun with this project and share your results on Instagram by tagging me! @indarsworld

This lesson comes from my upcoming Online Course, “Circle Celebration,” a three-module course that is a playful, open-ended exploration of technique and materials that informs our personal preferences and styles. Join my mailing list at www.darsworld.com  to be notified of specially priced, early registration which will be available on November 2, 2020.

Each module is three weeks long and contains nine exercises and three projects, a total of 12 videos, accompanying downloadable pdf files, and eight bonus mini-lessons on specific types of acrylic materials. The three modules will be available separately as well as a bundle. A private Facebook group will be where we will all interact and share our work, brainstorm and inspire each other.

The course will begin on December 7, and came very much from being an artist in quarantine, as well as from a deep searching in my own artist’s heart and soul. New things come from pushing ourselves out of routine, from trying new tools, from slowing down and focusing on very small but poignant moments. I have concerns about the hyped up type of art courses that promise unattainable creative outcomes without addressing the foundational experiences that allow us to understand our own preferences for such simple things like line, color and medium before we even attempt technique. My hope is that, through this course and the small moments within, participants will be able to slow down and notice what they love about art supplies, making marks and their own feelings and preferences about things like color, texture and shape. 

Dar James

www.darsworld.com

IG: @indarsworld

FB: https://www.facebook.com/darannjames/

Create Fall Texture with Stencils, Molding Paste, and Acrylic Skins

Is everyone ready to get their texture on? Autumn is my favorite season and I'm excited that it's here again, so this month I'm sharing a few ideas for creating a tree bark effect with stencils and molding paste, as well as using stencils with acrylic skins and a heat gun to make translucent fall leaves. Here's the piece I created with these techniques - "The Dryad's Tree."

I've put together a little tutorial to show you how I made both the leaves and the textured background. Ready to get started?

First I took clear gloss medium (Golden used to call it Polymer medium... Liquitex pouring medium would be about the same) and I poured some on a silicon mat and then spread it with a silicon spatula (this one is a Princeton Catalyst Blade.)

Next I added in a few drops of fluid acrylic paint (in the photo above I used Transparent Red Iron Oxide,) and swirled it into the medium. You can tint the medium before you pour it, but I wanted a more uneven effect that was slightly marbled in appearance. I repeated this with a yellow, gold, and green and then set the whole thing aside to dry.

Once dry, I peeled the skins off the mat and put them between sheets of wax paper until I was ready to use them again. I wanted to create something leaf shaped in multiple sizes, so I pulled out my Ornamental Peacock Feathers stencil and traced just the outside of each shape onto the skin with a Stabilo All pencil. (This will easily write on the acrylic surface, and then you just use a wet brush to wipe off any lines later.)

Once I'd traced lots of leaves in different shapes across the different colored skins, I cut them all out. 

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with acrylic skins lately and something I really wanted to try was to see what would happen if I applied heat... could I shape it and have it stay? Yes! Yes I could. To start, get your heat gun and zap your acrylic skin shape for a few seconds - it will be hot to the touch.

While it's still pretty warm, pick up the skin and start to shape it - the heat makes the acrylic tacky enough that it will stick together where you fold or pinch it to itself (it works best if the glossy side of the skin is the side you're pinching together.) I did one leaf at a time, repeating it until I'd shaped about half of them.

At this point I thought that it was going to be pretty boring if all of the leaves were plain, so I got out some rubber stamps and Staz-On ink and stamped some patterns onto the surface of the skins.

Then I kept going with my heat gun until I'd shaped all of my leaves. I put them back on a sheet of wax paper and set them aside until I was ready to add them to the panel.

Next up, time to work on the background. I pulled out a 10" x 20" x 1-1/2" cradled birch panel and a jar of regular molding paste and started by just spreading some random stripes and ridges of the molding paste with a palette knife all over the surface and sides of the panel, then I let that dry overnight. After that, I took out the 9" x 12" from Seth Apter's Borderlines StencilClub set and used some of the border patterns to create linear texture on the background. I let that dry for about a half hour or so, then used the 9" x 12" stencil from the Cuba Libre! StencilClub set by Jane LaFazio and applied more molding paste. 

From here, I just kept putting down the stencil and applying, moving and adding more texture without waiting for anything to dry. To finish with this step, I went back and took the 6" x 6" stencil from Seth's Borderlines set and added yet another series of layers, again just working wet into wet. Once I had all the texture I wanted, I set it aside to dry overnight yet again and thoroughly cleaned my stencils.

With the texture finished, it was time to start adding paint. I wanted to do something that would mimic the feel of tree bark, so I started with a brown background paint by Matisse (essentially tinted gesso,) and coated the entire panel, scrubbing in with my bristle brush to get the paint into all of the nooks and crannies.

While the brown was still a bit wet, I went in again with the Capitol Sienna color and worked wet into wet, blending a bit around the edges and starting to create some variation in the color. I also added some yellow, then let it dry.

At this point I wanted to bring in more contrast so I took some Transparent Shading Gray High Flow Acrylic (Golden) in a Fineliner bottle and applied it into the openings in the textured areas, then scrubbed that in and started blending it out with a cheap bristle brush, blotting off here and there with a paper towel. I let that layer dry completely before moving on.

Next up I started dry brushing which is why I wanted the background totally dry; dry brushing doesn't work so well if there's any "wet" involved, after all!

I went back with my cheap, dry bristle brushes and started by adding some more of the Capitol Sienna - you just need the barest hint of paint on the brush, dusted it lightly across the tops of the textured areas. This brings in even more color variation and continues to heighten the contrast. I went with a yellow next, using a smaller brush so that I wouldn't be as likely to cover all of the previous layers of color.

Because it's me and I love my metallics, I finished with a light dusting of Iridescent Bronze paint to brighten it up just a bit and add a hint of shimmer.

With both the background and the leaves done, it was time to bring it all together. I grabbed some fabric scraps and collage papers and added some layers in a few places on the edge as well as behind the focal point piece I decided on - a large vintage doorplate with some great aging on it. I inked the papers and fabric, layered it all up, and adhered it. I used matte medium for the collage (including the fabric,) and E-6000 to add the doorplate.

With all of the collage in place, I started positioning and adhering my acrylic skin leaves using PVA glue.

Once the glue was set and the leaves were holding in place, I used a bit more PVA and added some size 6/0 gold seed beads. I liked this as an additional texture element, as well as a way to cover the ends of the leaves.

Once the PVA had dried, I added drops of gloss medium over top - this will slide down the sides and insides of the beads and help to lock them down to the panel and acrylic leaves below.

From here I just kept working, layering and arranging the leaves until I liked the way it looked and it felt complete. While I was assembling all of the pieces I was trying to think of what I could put in the openings of the doorplate and found this image of a Lover's Eye and the idea came to me to not just make this a fall tree, but the home of a dryad. She's peeking out through the peephole of her door, checking to see who's approaching before inviting them in.

Here are a few more closeups of the finished piece so that you can see how the texture, acrylic skin leaves, and collage elements all came together to create the whimsical home of a mythological creature.

I hope you enjoyed this month's project and maybe even picked up a few ideas for working with paint, texture, and stencils in your own work. If you try this at home, I'd love to see it!

Until next time, happy stenciling!

Gwen