Sunday, September 11, 2011

Collage Unleashed Progress + A Challenge!!



Hey people of earth!! I'm back in the blogosphere with another daily blog post for all of you. Today I worked a little bit in Traci Bautista's book "Collage Unleashed" and did the first project out of it. It was dyed paper towels. I'm not really sure how she gets hers to be so vibrant. Mine are always muddled and so dull. I need to experiment and try to get some better color. If any of you have any suggestions for my epic fail of paper towel dying, then I'd be happy to listen to any advice. Even if you're not sure the suggestions would work, please tell me about them in the comments, since I am always looking for new ideas. Even if it doesn't necessarily work for the original purpose that it was thought up for, with a little editing, we might have a new technique on our hands. :) That's the way I think of it.

With these paper towels I mostly worked with pinks and reds, but I used a bit of a blue and turquoise in there as well. And some metallic copper. I think my problem is that I'm using too much water. Or not enough pigment. Because you have to mix your paints with some water to make these towels. I used a bunch of acrylic paints, some sumi inks, and some watercolor paints (liquid). I love the way these turned out, but, as I said, I just wish they were more vibrant. Oh well. You win some you loose some.


Here was my basic setup/collation of supplies for this project. I just collected all the supplies that I thought I could use for this. The thing it, I always love pictures like this; you know, just a picture of the supplies, so I thought I would try one for a change. That's why I love Traci Bautista's blog so much though. Especially because of her "Snippets From the Studio" series. They are just so cool. Anyways, in this picture, I had just culled a bunch of acrylic paints, poster paints, tempera paints, higgins inks, glitters, gesso, canning jars, some syringes, and a few other things. And after I set them up I photographed them. It's as simple as that.


And here I have an index card I worked on today. I didn't finish it, but it didn't turn out half bad if I do say so myself. It's a technique that I've been experimenting with (I've been designing it myself). One of my favorite things to do actually is come up with my own techniques. It's so much fun to think of something that nobody else has ever before. You know what I mean? How about today I challenge YOU to come up with your own technique today? Post it on your blog if you have one, and link to it in the comments. I'll make sure to give it a look see. And I'll probably try out every single one in there. Let's do that! You post a link to your technique in the comments, and I'll try them out and post them as I do them! And, if you don't have a blog, then just type it out briefly in the comments section. :) So I challenge you today to post something for me. :) See you guys later.

3 comments:

  1. OK Jordan - you got me curious with your paper towel experiment. I have Traci's book and have never done the paper towel thing. I'm working from home today because my son is home sick from school and this was a good excuse to take a break and go play! I have a box of liquid watercolors leftover from my preschool teaching days that I got from discount school supply. These worked GREAT - undiluted. As soon as I watered them down they faded into bland nothingness. I also have acrylic ink, and I watered this down (1 squirt ink, 3 squirts water) and the colors were super bright. I tried the "fold-and-dip" method, and the "scrunch and dip" method, and I just squirted some directly on the paper towels. All pretty interesting and colorful. Then, because now I'm just having a darn good time, I tried scribbling on a dry paper towel with water color crayons (neocolor II) and then I crumpled the paper towel, got it a little bit wet and squeezed it around. kinda cool. finally I tried it with good old food coloring and water from the kitchen. Not as bright as the liquid watercolor or acrylic inks, but still pretty good and cheap and easy. so I hope that gives you some good ideas. thanks for posting this technique because I just had a totally fun half-hour play break! (P.S. I've been enjoying your blog!) -Karen

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  2. your blog post is inspiring me to try that technique,especially, since I have that book! Thanks for the inspiration. Keep up the great work!

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  3. Food coloring is a fantastic idea. You might just come up with your own technique to share! that is quite the batch of supplies!!
    ~Dawn

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