Mini Art Journaling Postcards

I have to say I really love making the art journal type postcards.  The commitment is so small....4" by 6".  I started these three cards out the usual way, a 4" by 6" piece of watercolor paper 140# covered with a small amount of gesso.  Today I'm featuring the Walnut Ink sprays by Tsukineko for one of my Artists in Residence March projects and I wanted to control the depth of color of the ink.  The gesso acts as a resist and keeps the walnut ink sprays from soaking in too fast, which is the effect I wanted  for this project.  I get an antique marbleized effect that is very soft by using this technique.  I sprayed the prepared surface with water then sprayed the Lilac, Cornflower and Willow colors on separate postcards.  After I spray the Walnut Inks I allow the ink to run all over the paper, spraying more water if necessary and then drying it with a heat gun.  Then I spray the card in several areas with Tsukineko's Sheer Shimmer Spritz Frost.  I allow this to move around on the paper by lifting and turning it, then dry it again with my heat gun.  Now I have beautiful antiqued muted color and shimmer on each of my postcards.

This project for Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts is the artist "Project of Choice" so this artist has chosen to work with the Lilac Walnut Ink sprayed card today.  I'll share the other two finished postcards later in the week. I start building my layers on top of the beautiful lilac background using stamps like Dina Wakley's grungy circles.  For the ink I used Tsukineko StazOn Royal Purple, it blends very nicely with the lilac color.  To get a little more sheen I stamped the same stamp with Tsukineko's Opalite Orchid Ice.  This is a reflective interference ink.  I heat embossed these inks with clear embossing powder.  I used an old credit card to make some lines on the card using VersaFine Majestic Blue ink also made by Tsukineko and I added some white lines with StazOn Opaque Cotton White Inker, which is very convenient for making fine white lines.  My layered background is almost complete at this point.  Just a few circles made with an old jar lid dipped into some Golden Acrylic Interference Blue paint to finish it up.

 The image I chose is a piece of clip art found at DeviantScrap.com, it was made by ITKUPILLI Imagenarium.  I love this image of a lady who looks like she is going for afternoon tea, wearing her pearls, hat and gloves!  After trimming her out I applied Matte Medium to the back with my fingers and then made sure I sealed the edges with any excess.  When that was dry I outlined her with Black Gelato and smudged it with my Imagine Crafts Brushstix, better than a Q-tip swab, believe me.  To complete my postcard I used one of my Imagine Crafts Ink Blushers to carefully apply a tiny bit of StazOn Royal Purple ink to the edges of the card.  Perfect.

She makes me want to get dressed up and go for tea, how about you?  I want to thank Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts for supplying me with all the products for today's project.  I also want to thank all of you for stopping by today and visiting my blog, it makes it so much more fun when people drop by and leave a comment.  I will show you the other completed postcards over the next couple of days.  Talk to you soon, have a great day!  Here is a list of all the products I used on this postcard.

Products Used

Watercolor paper 140# cut to 6" by 4"

Tsukineko Lilac Walnut Ink

Imagine Crafts Sheer Shimmer Spritz/Frost

Tsukineko Opalite Orchid Ice Reflective Interference Ink

StazOn Royal Purple ink

VersaFine Majestic Blue

StazOn Opaque Cotton White Inker

Golden Acrylics Interference Blue

Black Gelato

ITKUPILLI clip art found at DeviantScrap.com

Tools

Stamps:  Phrase by Northwoods Rubber Stamps,  Dina Wakley Grunge Circles

old credit cards

jar lids

Imagine Crafts Brushstix

Imagine Crafts Ink Blushers (sponges)

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