A Colour Swatch

After watching the Bister videos on the Paperartsy blog (related to the new "pigments" challenge) I decided I really need to do a colour swatch of my own. I am also posting for the Designs by Ryn customer challenge and the Craft Barn weekly challenge (stencils).

I bought my Bister powders from Stampinback.nl as a sampler pack, all 8 colours for 8e. Seeing the swatch on the video, I deeply suspect that there is a mistake with my Mahogany: it is almost the same as red. I cut three different kinds of paper strips: Bristol board, Indigoblu stamping card and Crafty Individuals ivory silk card. I wanted to compare porous and non porous surfaces. Actually there is not a big difference in the results and I decided to document only the Bristol board and silk card in the journal. The indigoblu strips (in the middle) were cut into squares and used as a background for a card that you can find here.

I wanted to continue my experiment a bit further, so I glued paper strips on the right side of the spread, and covered with gesso. Half of that (on thhe right) was covered with clear gesso, in case that would make a difference. An experimental spirit engulfed me, so I took a stencil (Maidenhair by Ryn) and added crackle paste, gloss gel and modelling paste to the page. I played around with the powders... The gesso gives quite a chance to wipe stuff out and redo... The green and yellow practically disappeared and I do prefer having some white and splashes, but it isn't too bad. I added a couple of moths, colouring them with colour pencils. By the way, I learned that though Stazon marks almost anything, it doesn't make a print on moist paper! The right hand moth first had only wings :)

As far as the experiment is concerned I could say the following:

        - Bister works well on gesso, colours are vibrant

        - clear gesso didn't make much of a difference, biggest difference if you regard the line running             through the middle of the blue on the lower part of the page. Clear gesso on the right.

        - water splatters (after the pigment is dry) result in white spots like with Distress Inks

        - crackle paste looks cool, doesn't take very much colour itself, but shows from the cracks.

        - gloss gel gives a decent resist, but takes a tint from the colours

        - modelling paste (Deco art) absorbed the colour

Love the combination of black, blue and "natural".
The bleaching effect of water on dry colour pigment to the left.

The lower edge that shows effects of plain paper vs white gesso

The leaves stencilled with modelling paste are barely visible compared with the crackle paste.

Glossy gel tinted with red and yellow more than with the brown shades visible around.

This was fun, I'm going to have to do the same with my Brushos, they are still in the box they came in some months ago!