Background Techniques
I want to share with you a couple of my favourite background techniques for art journaling.
Using Resist
Gel medium acts as a resist, so you can stencil, stamp, and paint with it on your surface. Once dried you can go over it with a wash of paint (watered-down acrylic or watercolour) to reveal the patterns left by the resist. You can use this technique on a gessoed or non-gessoed surface.
You can also use this technique with wax crayons. Basically the part covered with the crayon wax will not be dyed. Start by drawing some lines, shapes, or another design on your paper with a white crayon or using the edge of a white candle. Then start painting!
Salt
A wash is acrylic paint or watercolour heavily watered down and washed over the page. Wash your page with 1-3 colours of watercolour, sprinkle with some table salt, and then watch the magic happen. You can also use sand.
Using a card or a knife
One of the easiest and fastest ways to create a background is to simply squirt some paint onto your page then move it around with an old credit card or key card. Scrape the paint up and down, and then scrape side to side, letting the colours mix slightly. When dry, you can add another layer of color. You can also use a roller to move the paint around the page.
Collage
Collaging with gel medium or mod podge, old dictionary pages, scrapbook papers, magazine clippings etc. will add textures and dimension to your work. Once it is dry, you can paint over it with watered down paint. I dab the page with a paper towel here and there to ‘lift’ some paint over an image I want to keep .
Add texture with gesso
Squirt gesso onto your page then spread it around with a palette knife or card. Now you can add texture by drawing into it with the back of a paint brush, using stamps, stencils or scratching. You will need to let it dry fully before you add a wash of paint over it.
Rubbing Alcohol and Watercolour
Alcohol and water don’t mix, so when you drip or pour alcohol over a watercolour wash it leaves fabulous patterns.
Tissue Paper Technique
I love to keep the tissue papers you get in packaging. White or coloured, just try both. I spread plenty of gel medium or mod podge on my gessoed page, then take scrunched-up tissue and press it down gently... I let it dry and use it as a textured page.
Toothbrush Splatter
Simply dip the ends of the bristles into your color of choice, and run your thumb over the bristles to splatter colour onto your page. I also have some watered-down paint in spray bottles and spray the paint over the page.
Spray and Brush
I add some watered down paint in a spray bottle and spray the paint over the page. I then use a wet paintbrush to spread the paint around and allow it to blend, leaving areas untouched
Drips
For this technique, I would put a loose page between the page you are working on and the pages underneath in order to prevent the paint staining other pages. Using the watered-down paint in a spray bottle again, I spray a lot of paint on one edge of the page, tip the page up and spray it with a lot of water. Tip the book so the drips continue down the other page. Now spray the right side of your journal with other colours.
