MASK AND SPRAY
This is a technique which I think I am right in saying that I invented myself. I’ve never seen anyone else do this.
It is a method of spray-painting a background and using cut out shapes as masks. The shapes prevent the sprayed ink touching the paper underneath. Turning the shapes over and replacing them elsewhere on the sheet results in a very subtle and interesting background. You are also left wth a number of double-sided shapes that can be made up and used. How’s that for a twofer?
This is a combination of several posts I made back in 2012 on my old blog. I’ve put everything together under one roof, as it were, and cut out my earliest experiments which are not relevant since I refined the process. This is the technique I referred to briefly in my previous post about the inked kitchen papers.
I used Dylusions spray inks for this project. These water-based inks come in many colours, some quite vibrant, in larger bottles than many spray inks. They give good coverage as well.
Layer 1
Spraying the ink onto the paper, using more than one colour for an interesting background.
Layer 2
More ink, until the piece is covered. At this stage you can do some stencilling to add more textural interest to the piece, but it’s not essential.
Layer 3 – Laying down the flower pieces
I have an electronic cutting machine and have a lot of vector outline images which the machine will cut. The flower pieces in this project were designed by Penny Duncan and I got these as part of a large free consignment of svg (scalable vector graphic) designs she’d made. I’ve also designed my own shapes and acquired many others from different sources. (Penny used to be very active online and I was part of one of her forums for a while but looking her up now, she seems to have disappeared and her sites are either unavailable or have no content. I have no idea what’s happened, and I therefore can’t supply any links.)
Penny’s flower pieces in this example may look the same, but if you look carefully you will see that some have holes in the centre (2 sizes), some have a slit between the petals to the hole, and some do not. These five different pieces come together in a beautiful 3-D rose (more later).
I laid the uncoloured flower pieces down randomly on the inked background and sprayed again, being careful not to move the flowers.
The flower pieces act as masks, preventing the spray from touching the paper underneath.
Layer 4
The next step is to pick up the flower pieces, turn them over, and replace them onto the background piece, but in different places. Where they were, the paper has remained the colour of the initial spraying. The undersides of the flowers are white.
You spray again. This means that the flower pieces are now inked on both sides.
You remove the flowers, and the first masking on the background is more subtle because it’s had a second spray over the top.
These backgrounds are very subtle and interesting, and of course you can use any cut out shape you want in order to get the effect. You could also use stencils.
This completes the mask and spray technique.
Working on the flowers
This is a bonus, and not part of the technique, but having shown you the flower pieces, I thought you might like to see how they end up. Being inked on both sides, they are ideal for making 3-D flowers.
The pieces are hand-embossed with a ball tool on a piece of fun foam. Following Penny’s directions, you use each of the five pieces in order, wrapping them around and attaching with hot glue at each stage, until the rose is complete.
The flowers at the bottom are single-layer ones but embossed in the same way. These particular ones have tiny cut flower shapes in the centre, with a blob of glitter glue in various colours, which of course doesn’t show up properly on the photo.
Here’s a close-up of some of the roses.
I love the subtle variations in the colours of these pieces. They make beautiful embellishments on many projects. This is the front cover of an album I made, all about my Mum’s life, with a floral theme. It is full of these 3-D flowers. There’s a video flip-through of it on YouTube. (“Floral Mini-Album Flip-Through.”)
Taking the technique a step further
The addition of Infusions by PaperArtsy take the technique to a new level. These powder pigments work in the same way as Brushos, but the colours are a lot more interesting, and they have an added ingredient, fragments of walnut, which add a gorgeous grungey touch.
Here are some background pieces I made, using the technique, combining inks with Infusions. I have added some leaf doodles on the leafy one.
A collection of embossed 3-D leaves I made, using the technique. I love the spots and speckles on the ones with the Infusions – just like the decaying leaves one finds on the forest floor in autumn.
Detail of a page from my “Mamhead Memories” album.
