I have a large pack of A3 paper – not brilliant quality, just your basic office paper. Since I am going to be using mostly distress inks to start with, and the work isn’t going to get terribly wet, I thought this would be good enough at least for now.
I hoped to make a nice dark grungey brown masterboard, but it took a great deal of work to get there, and on the way, a lot of the effects I added were obliterated by subsequent layers. However, this was a learning curve for me; looking back, I think I would have done well to stop about half way through as I’d got a really nice masterboard, which could have been used for other purposes!
Here are some of the materials I used. I also used clear embossing powder as a resist.
Nearly out of shot to the right is my sepia archival ink which should have been in the photo. At the back you can see some of the distress inks used, and a roll of baking parchment for ironing off the embossing resist. At the end of the project I also used distress stains.
I began by inking all over the sheet with a mixture of Old Paper and Antique Linen distress inks, blending them well with my Inkylicious Ink Dusters.
At this point, I stamped with a text stamp from Creative Expressions (Umount “Textures” set):
using Pumice Stone distress ink, but as the project progressed, this stamping was obliterated. I did not use an acrylic block with this stamp as I wanted a rough, less than perfect result. This is a great technique I learnt fairly recently on Youtube.
After this, I added further distress ink in Dried Marigold.
I then used a small swirl stamp (CFLR 0211 from The Stamp Barn) to apply Versamark, and added clear embossing powder. Once this had been heated, it acted as a resist to further inking.
Once this was done, I inked over the swirls resist with Aged Mahogany distress ink, and wiped the ink off the resist with some kitchen paper.
Then I inked through some sequin waste with Tea Dye distress ink, but again, most of this subsequently got obliterated by further layers being added.
It was at this stage that I think I could have stopped, but I was determined to get it a lot more grungey. Further inking and clear embossing resist followed, the latter being done with my large bubble wrap stamping block – I made this from a wooden stamp block that I’d removed the rubber stamp from, in order to use it unmounted, and I glued a piece of bubble wrap onto the block.
Unfortunately the circles it generated were larger than I really wanted – I would have done better to use my small bubble wrap block.
I emphasised the circles with more distress ink, this time in Vintage Photo.
Because the circles were so big, the sheet ended up with a very plasticky feel with all the clear embossing on it, and if I was going to add any further interest to the lighter-coloured circles, this would have to go.
It took me quite a while, but I managed to iron off most of the embossing, by placing the sheet face-down onto another sheet and sandwiching the whole thing between non-stick baking parchment and applying a hot iron.
I tried to keep the blotting-off sheet lined up with the masterboard as much as possible and avoided moving it, so that the transferred embossing might make a useable pattern on the second sheet. I have done this before – the definition is not as clear, but the results can be quite interesting, and it acts as a resist as before.
I had to use a second sheet just to mop up any remaining embossing, and while this did not leave such a clear pattern, it has made some interesting marks that may respond well to further inking. I wasn’t so careful about keeping it in one place so the effect is more random, especially as much of the embossing had already been removed onto the first sheet.
As far as the main sheet is concerned, I re-stamped the script background, but it didn’t show up sufficiently, and nor did an attempt at stencilling with first Black Soot Distress Ink and then black archival ink – not a great success! The masterboard still wasn’t as dark and grungey as I wanted, so I had to get drastic with it.
First of all, I inked it all over with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster. Sometimes purple will dull down whatever’s underneath, and while this did have that effect to a slight degree, it wasn’t enough. Time to unleash the Distress Stains. I went over the whole thing with Pumice Stone but again, although it dulled it down a little, it was still not dark enough, so I used Gathered Twigs all over, and blotted it with a piece of kitchen paper to reduce the streaks, and then added Dusty Concord on the large circles. I blotted them a bit, and then did a splat on the circles with the Dusty Concord and dried it with my heat gun (it took ages). I then re-splatted most of the circles and left it to dry. This is the final result.
It is now really quite dark and grungey, but what a sweat, though, getting it to this stage!!
