It’s been some time since I shared any of my art and the truth is that stressful family matters have completely deflated my creative mojo. I know what you’re thinking – stressful times just scream for the release of art play. While I know that intellectually, I just haven’t been able to force myself to actually get out the paints.
I did however, decide that it was time to clean up my studio a bit and it was then that my eye landed on a product I’d purchased some time ago and never used. In fact, I looked it up on my Amazon account – purchased in the summer of 2013 and never opened! “Golden’s Absorbent Ground” – hmmm … wonder why I got that? I used The Google to enlighten me and discovered it’s used to change the absorbency of surfaces (surprise, surprise). Armed with this new information (!!) and still no recollection of why I thought I absolutely positively had to have it, I decided to experiment.
I coated one side of my Dylusions journal with gesso and the other with the absorbent ground and let the pages dry for a bit. I pulled out some lovely but mostly unused (no comments from the peanut gallery please) Pebeo Studio Acrylic paints and used my fingers to push small amounts of paint around on each page, sometimes diluting them with a little water. And guess what? There was truly a big difference in the way the paint reacted on each side of the page. On the gessoed side, the paints stayed true to color, but did not really absorb into the page – just sort of floated on top. On the absorbent ground side, the paints took on a faded, watercolor-ish look and spread beautifully and evenly. I liked both looks, but the absorbent ground side really won me over. Have you tried absorbent ground in your artwork? What did you think?
Since I now had a pretty background, I went ahead and added some stenciling and marks without any real thought and before I knew it 40 minutes had gone by. I let it dry and when I came back, I realized that the white lines in the upper left sort of resembled a face blowing that mess of diamonds …. and by the time they got to the stenciled face on the other page, they were almost totally dispersed. Hmmmm … I guess you just never know ….
By the way, the white lines were made with a Signo White Gel Pen – wow! It writes over everything and the journaling at the bottom was done with black high flow acrylic mixed with airbrush medium in a fine tipped applicator. LOVE!
Supply List for This Project
Full disclosure – most of the links to these products are “affiliate links” to help feed my insatiable need for more “stuff”.
- Pebeo Studio Acrylic
- Golden Absorbent Ground
- Liquitex Professional White Gesso Surface Prep Medium, 16-oz
- Fine Tip Applicators
- Golden High Flow Acrylic – Carbon Black
- Golden Airbrush Medium
- Dyan Reaveley’s Creative Journals
- Dylusions Ink Spray
- Uni Ball Signo Gel Ink Pens
Love your piece of art Vick! The water color effect on the absorbent side is really pretty! You are rocking with those art supplies!
Thanks, girlfriend! It’s such fun to experiment!
I’m sorry to read of your stresses and hope they pass soon for you or have passed since you wrote this. May your fantabulous art mojo come back to full strength soon. I love seeing what you do with these art supplies that I have no idea how to use. I wish I had money and time to play with them, but instead will enjoy what you create.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and your nice comments, Hummie.
You found a treasure! Woo-hoo! There’s treasures to be found at Vicki’s! LOL This ground stuff sounds neat! When my ship comes in, I am going to go buy a bunch of the ‘real’ painting products I read about! I used to paint, in reality, but, had a hard time keeping paint around with the grandchildren. My grandson decorated my shower walls! Very, um, ‘pretty’! LOL
Thanks for sharing a part of your day! I enjoy it!
Su
Oh no! Grandchildren and paint do not mix well – at least not in the bathroom! Thanks for stopping by my blog Su – I always enjoy hearing from you!
This is really pretty Vicki. I have never used grounds myself but I am really a newbie when it comes to paint stuff. I generally have no idea what I am doing which is why the results are always a surprise to me. LOL
Thanks for the tip on the white gel pen. I will add that to my huge supply of white pens that are supposed to write over everything, from tips I have gotten elsewhere. So far, I am still looking for the dream pen though, so here’s hoping this Signo White Gel Pen is it! 🙂
Thanks, Maya! I’ve used the Signo pen over everything except my oil based pastels and have been really pleased so far. Like you I have a ton that had lots of “promise” but never lived up to the hype. I’d be interested to know what you think when you get around to giving it a try.