Light & Shade Paint Tutorial

I was talking to a friend about achieving Light and Shade on a project using Paints. You can do this method with all sorts of mediums some of them are a bit smelly though, Vanessa wanted to know how to get this effect without having to go outside in winter. 

 

So I was discussing this and said that there are several ways with several mediums to achieve this affect, there always are by the way.  Most things that we do in Mixed Media, Altered Art etc can all be done in more than one way so you just choose the method  you like the best. I have been playing with Paints for a long time on cards, walls, nails ( I used to always have beautiful nails, not now though) anyway, I love the way paint works, its the easiest medium to just wipe out too. If you don't like it you paint it back out simple!!!

I had been working on this at the time, its a much bigger project than this, this is a twinchie made from two Gelli Plate Prints using Clarity Stamps.  I love to do this - right you take two prints, stamp them almost the same, then cut them up.  With the cut areas try to match up one half of a stamped image with a Gelli Print and the other half of that same image with the other Gelli Print. So this is my ATC, it doesn't have to be exact.  Then you try to get some white spaces to make the images stand out BUT (in my head and for a self-challenge) you are only allowed to use the two Gelli Prints and not add any other card or paper to the project.  So I will show you where I am taking it to  when I get chance to finish it, probably in December.

So me and Vanessa were discussing doing some Light and Shade, that's why I showed you the above picture because I will be doing some of that on this Twinchie, using Charcoal pencils.  But for the project for Vanessa its all Paint. OK that's a Lie I have just looked at my pictures Ha ! It has ink on initially but all the effects are done with paint.

 

So please note that this is just to show how quickly you can change the look of something quite dramatically.  It isn't a finished project and was never intended to be, its all about the Play. I will finish it one day though in my own  way.

I stamped the Car half onto the Tag.  I chopped up some bits of card randomly - well not too randomly because its a Tag so you need them similar sizes. !

Get an Ink pad, Yellow in this case, and just rub it across the Tag, we want some bright base colours on here - most of this will be covered.

 There you go, nice and thick but random.

A bit of Blue! Always need a bit of Blue in a project.

Do the same, just rub it across the Tag.  I am not adding water because I don't want the colour diluted. The wet wipes will dilute it enough.

Mmmm Still putting Blue on?

Ah there you go, see how the Blue lifts it.  We also have a bit of Green going on here from the colour mix, that's fine, its just an undercoat.

So, those bits of cut out/ pre-stamped card, just randomly place them on the Tag and glue down. Keep drying the project with a heat gun. If you don't dry it everything will just start merging and lifting.

I normally use the System 3 Paints, but I am a little partial to Dina Wakely Paints and PaperArtsy paints for special effects and bright colours.

So here I have put the paint onto a sponge, that craft sponge with the black backing - the name escapes me!!!

The fun bit, just rub the paint over the cut out card that you stuck down.  Make note, what ever we do on top from now on we want to take it back again enough to be able to see this Pink - or some of it. AND remember to keep drying your project.

The SHOCKING BIT ! Cover the whole thing in Black or "Night" if you have the Dina Wakely Paints.

Use a Wet Wipe or the sponge as with the pink.

Gooowwwnnn get on with it!

Ta Da - Yuk!!! So I put it on with a Wet Wipe and I took it back off with a wet wipe - but not all of it. So what we are looking for here is to catch the edges of those pink areas, we are going to take all of the top of the pink, but leave it on the sides.

See - you can already see that the pink just looks a tiny bit more embedded, and the dry areas (by dry areas I mean the flat of the Tag, we don't want to mess too much with this because it will start to rub off, keep it quite dry)  of the Tag have started to change the way they look, that's just from one or two sweeps

So here I decided I am going to need more bright colours in the base, So I added Yellow and Orange Paint. Randomly rubbed on with a sponge. Remember to keep some pink!!



So Again I have done the sweep over with System 3 Brown this time and then rubbed back off with a wet wipe. Just catch different edges each time or ALL of them but not evenly.

Now we are starting to get somewhere, I have brought in the ink to use a little with my Blending Tool, I didn't do much with this though. As it is water based I took most of it back out and  you don't get as much play as with the paint on this type of play.

Gone Mad!! So I have added a bright Blue paint, same methods. The purpose of all these layers is that although most of it is going to be covered up, the little bits that do show through at the end are the bits that absolutely make the look !!

 

So out with the Charcoal Pencil = rub it around all the edges of the layered card and just onto the card at the upper edge.
(I did this version of this  technique for the first time in a class with Hels Sheridan)
once you have shaded all the areas rub in circular movements all along the edge and slightly on the top with your finger - or if you want to stay clean use a Blending tool.  Remember the circular movements though it makes all the difference.
Dyan Reavely taught me that in a Journal class.  Funny isn't it see you take one Charcoal Pencil and everyone has so many different methods to use with it - all of them completely different.  Remember the Scratching off technique Barbara Gray showed me on the Vase Stencil?

 

See the flower top left, this is the Charcoal taken back out like Barbara showed me which I think is great for shading, that's the technique I used here :-

 





So anyway back to it. 

Look you even get Repeats on Blogs these days !!!

So its starting to look a right mess, but a controlled right mess, this is exactly what we want.  See all the light areas, remember I said every time you add a layer, no matter what it is, get out your Wet Wipe and again in circular movements (so that you don't get any straight lines) wipe away the paint, ink whatever from the areas you want the bright colour to show through till the end!

A close up - you can see here I have added some shadow stamping and a bit of  silver pen - do be careful because if you do too much it will spoil it completely.  I partly did it because nothing will sit on top of it except the Paint, so you will just see a tiny bit of shine popping through at the end. If I did this again I would leave the Silver out of it.  See how the car jumps out with the bright Yellow, this is one of the areas I want to look almost the same when I am finished.

Right here we go again (you know this only took me half an hour in all!)  Get out a bit of kitchen roll or a sponge and rub black over your project completely, have a wet wipe handy we don't really want this to dry.

Lovely job!  If it does dry too much just give a little spray of water to the paint and it will re-activate it enough to be able to wipe it off with the Wet Wipe!

Ah there you go !

So start rubbing it off.  Remember we are not doing housework here, we don't want the whole Tag cleaned off.  We just want to rub  enough away to be able to see the colours and we want to catch the edges of those raised areas. So to do that we need to gently wipe up and down and across. 

 

I think this picture really gives you a good idea of how to do this.

Ooh What a mess, I love  it.

So what do you think Vanessa  - are we getting close?  Its just a case of having a play now and taking it to the depth or level you want it to be at. I have added some white at the tops here to start to make areas look Light shaded. Paint of course.

 

You can of course go back in with light colours if you have lost too much of it, but personally I wouldn't because its the Dark edges over the light that make it work. So if you did feel you had to add some, just do the black process again on top.

I added  a bit of varnish on in some areas to make it look a bit "leathered".

So there you have it, as I said not a finished project as such but a method and a grungy look.  I think to finish this off nicely I would slightly darken the edges and stamp some of those lovely Word Chain stamps from Clarity Stamp on the pink areas. I would stamp my "Art" one but I have lost it, I am gutted!  I could have fitted in "Home is where the Art  is" ! I was quite chuffed with myself when I made that one up !

So I hope this helps Vanessa and anyone else who fancies doing a bit of light and shading. Its not a Method as such I suppose, this is just the way I play with my paints for this grungy look. A bit of Mixed Media meets Journaling.

I love these little Girly Stamps from Clarity Stamp, I only just bought them a few months ago and want to get them out all the time. .

I hope you can see the potential.

This one gets it next. xx

 

 

 

Bye for now

Thank you for dropping by

Sam xx