Shoshiplatypus

Faded Fresco Walls

At last I’ve managed to get the effect I want, as shown by Robyn McClendon. I wasn’t able to get the Stainz product she uses during the first half of the video because the shipping to the UK is totally ridiculous. You can get the effect without it, though, with the right kind of ink!

Using the correct inks

Robyn used a combination of Distress Spray Stains and Seth Apter Izinks. I didn’t have the latter, and hoped that the Spray Stains alone would do the job. They didn’t. You can read about my frustrating failed experiments here.

I decided to order the Izinks and see if they made a difference. They did!

Clearly these inks have a different formulation from the Spray Stains – something that makes them stay on the surface a bit more, and react with the chalk paint, and not be absorbed through the paper so much.

In my experiments I didn’t use the Distress Spray Stains at all, because I wanted to make sure it was the Izinks alone which would make the difference. When I want to make more of these Venetian Plaster backgrounds I shall incorporate them to add a bit more colour. For now, I used a combination of all of the inks except the black one. The gold one is amazing! It’s a much richer, more true gold colour than the Distress Mica Spray, which is lighter and yellower – what you’d expect, as it is called “Tarnished Brass.” Both have their place.

I began by making six fresh backgrounds using the PaperArtsy Fresco paints I bought recently. These are completely matte and chalky, and simply gorgeous. I didn’t bother to photograph these, as I had already done so with the first collection:

This is the sheet I used to clean off the brayer between colours. You can see how chalky the paint is. I love these brayering-off sheets with the abstract overlapping rectangular patterns.

These are the first three papers I made with the technique. You spray the inks onto a clean gel plate and brayer them to mix, and then lay a chalk paint or matte acrylic paint background on top and the inks do their magic. These ones weren’t desperately effective but they are certainly usable.

These ones were much more successful, especially the pink one on the right.

I’m not sure what I did that was different, but perhaps it was because it was due to subsequent applications on the plate. Sometimes the gel plate takes a little while to “warm up” when you start a session.

Here are some closer shots to show the effect in detail. First, the pink page in its entirety.

A detail shot of the effect, close up:

and closer again.

Surprisingly, you can see some of the gold shimmering on these pictures – reflective surfaces are notoriously problematic when it comes to photographing them. As Robyn would say, these are “yummy”!

I decided to try the effect on the brayered off sheet.

There are some really “yummy” bits of gold down the side!

I am very thrilled to have mastered this technique at last. The papers do look like faded, spattered and eroded fresco or stucco walls. The combination of ink and matte paint produces a quite remarkable effect. The Izinks are incredible. They are more densely pigmented than the Distress Spray Stains and I understand they are permanent when dry, but I haven’t put that to the test.

Watch this space for more of this, with the addition of the Spray Stains, and how I incorporate them into my collages.