BONUS Christmas Card: Using Brusho

 BRUSHO Christmas Trees: Easiest cards I've ever made.

To make 6 small cards, you will need:  

                         card stock-- 4 pieces (at least 1 white) or 6 cards and 2 pieces of white card stock 

                         glue

                         sheets of foam or sticker dots

                         brusho in several colors (If you don't have Brush-O, use watercolor on an inexpensive                                 watercolor paper.)

                         saran wrap or small bubble wrap

                         colored paper

                         spray bottle

(if you don't want to bother with making the BrushO paper, use any colorful cardstock weight papers you may have on hand)

The first step is to make the paper trees. Put some paper or wax paper over a cookies sheet to protect it. 

Put two sheets of white card stock on the pan and sprinkle with desired colors of Brush-O.

My top sheet has violet, cobalt blue, and Alizarin. Bottom sheet has olive, yellow, and sea green.

Spritz with water to reactivate the Brush-O crystals.

Quickly, while very wet, put on plastic wrap or bubble wrap. (plastic on top, bubble on bottom). Allow to dry completely.

(You can also apply the brusho directly onto the bubble wrap, then STAMP it onto the paper.)

When dry, cut (I used a paper cutter) simple triangles, some 4 inches tall, some 3 inches, some 2 inches. (If you want to use another shape, like circles, etc., that works too. Just different sizes) Here is the way I cut it to get at least 6 of each different size from one sheet:

Cut colored printer paper into 3 1/2 by 5 inches (for a 4 by 5 1/2 inch card) rectangles.

Cut white card stock into 8" by 11 inch pieces. (One piece makes 2 small cards) Or use pre-made

cards. I get mine at Hobby Lobby--50 cards and envelopes in a set for $9.99, often half off.

To assemble the card:

1. Center and glue colored paper onto the front of a card.

2. Glue large tree onto the card.

3. Put foam dots (or glue foam ) on the backs of a 3" and 2" tree.

4. Apply those to the card wherever it looks good to you.

5. I added some foam stars and dots to decorate, just because I had some leftover from another project. Buttons would also look fun.

DONE.

I know you'll figure out your own style and use your imagination with these. 

Christmas Cards: Doves in negative painting

 

One painting technique I find useful is negative painting. So today I showed making a card with that process. Below are a few others I've done. The mistletoe I found on Skillshare. 

Just doing words. I started with the bottom word, painted around it; did each consecutive word, one by one, painting around everything each time, getting darker and darker with each layer.  The Stems and pink looking JOY are painted with pearlescent watercolor paints OVER the black. 

Final dove painting

Another dove 

Find a simple pattern you like and can repeat in the painting. 

First make a light wash background. You can texture it with salt or saran wrap.

Dry that. Then sketch your first object, in this case, as dove. I just cut around the sketch, taped it in place, and used Saral (graphite transfer paper) to transfer the sketch to the card. 

After drawing the dove, I painting around it with a darker blue. This makes the dove appear.

The trick is to keep the area wet so that you don't get any hard edges. For example, I will wet about 2 inches out from the object, then paint closer to it and allow the paint to disperse into that wet area, keeping the edges soft, except around the dove itself.

Dry completely, then sketch in two other doves that will appear farther away. They will be darker because they are drawn over the paint from painting around the first dove. Then paint darker around those two new ones to make them appear.

You can keep doing this process until you have as many and as dark as you want.

I painted in the olive branch last. 

I have one suggestion if this is the first time you have tried negative painting. Try to stick to just a few colors, getting darker with each progressive layer. For example, go from magenta to blue to purple; or yellow to orange to red to brown; or yellow to green to blue. 

Most paintings are NOT done completely in negative painting. Google negative painting, and you'll see some pretty interesting paintings.

I have several other posts on negative painting also. See Sep 8, 5, and 2 of 2020; Nov 1, 2018.

Tape Batik Christmas Tree Card

Tape edges of the card to protect them and make a nice edge, about a 1/4" border. LIghtly sketch a triangle representing the size of the tree. Then, using inexpensive masking tape, tear tape into small pieces. It's important the tape be TORN. The more expensive type will not "bleed" or leak under as much as the cheap stuff.

Next step: wet the entire paper, including over the tape. Then add stripes of color, whatever you like. On some I used greens, blues, and gold; on another I used alizarin crimson, blue, and violet.

Now WATCH PAINT DRY. If you want to use salt, put it on while the paint is wet. But this time, I allowed the shine to leave the paint, and dropped clean water into the drying paint. It should make little bursts of blossoms. You can also spritz lightly to create small droplets. 

Allow the painting to dry completely. You want the paint that leaked under the tape to be dry as well as the background. You can use a blow dryer, but on low only. You don't want to glue the tape to the picture.

When dry, remove the tape from the tree. Don't worry if it didn't bleed as much as you might want...you can always add small lines with brush or pen. When finished, you can add gold paint or irridescent paints. I kind of like it as is, though. 

For more about tape batik process, google Sandy Maudlin tape batik, and you'll see some fabulous paintings. This is a process she created, and it can be done on yupo as well as regular watercolor paper.

You can click on these below to see a few. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.campusce.net%2Fthevillages%2FCourse%2Fprint.aspx%3F700&psig=AOvVaw2AQLHFyYcmXzLkPPVG4rZD&ust=1637364637055000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCKik-t6Io_QCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAG

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F_VArxNCrNvYs%2FTKvCfAaoF1I%2FAAAAAAAAGBw%2Fo1cEr1Hn3lM%2Fs1600%2FIRISH%2BEYES.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsandymaudlin.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F10%2Ftape-batik.html&tbnid=verEL_Vk8Pl9WM&vet=10CA0QxiAoA2oXChMIqKT63oij9AIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEAg..i&docid=3XBtE9u5_76VZM&w=548&h=360&itg=1&q=sandy%20maudlin%20tape%20batik&ved=0CA0QxiAoA2oXChMIqKT63oij9AIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEAg

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsandymaudlin.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F10%2Ftape-batik-in-france.html&psig=AOvVaw2AQLHFyYcmXzLkPPVG4rZD&ust=1637364637055000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCKik-t6Io_QCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAO

Masa Paper Landscape

 Here is a fun and simple way to do a landscape with masa paper.

First, prep the masa paper as usual. For those who are unfamiliar with it, do the following:

1. On the shiny (back) side of the paper, place an X in a corner

2. Wad up the paper in a tight ball.

3. wet the entire sheet

4. Lay it out on absorbent towels...I use puppy training pads

5. Lay in a light wash, letting the colors run together. Be sure to leave some whites.

6. Dry completely.

It should look similar to this below, only not so dark. You want medium to light values of color.

I chose an odd size of paper to force people and myself to think a little differently.

I folded it on what I want to be my horizon line.

At this point you might want to use a small board to support your masa paper, not taped on, just to lay the paper on so that you can move the paper around, spray it, etc. Masa paper is fragile when wet.

With a large soft brush, I wet about 2 " above the horizon line.

Then I painted in sunset colors. I sprayed a little to move the paint around. While that was wet, I refolded on the horizon line, pressed the paint into the bottom half of the picture, to create reflections in the water. 

I dried the sunset. Then I put in some dark along the horizon line for a tree line; refolded;

pressed the wet color into the "water" area for reflection.

I darkened some areas along the horizon line. Refolded.

Now I'm ready to put in hills, islands, and water. 

On dry paper, I put in hills and islands and added their reflections in the same way.

To indicate water, I just put in some horizontal lines in some areas of the water. In some, I lifted the paint,

other places are painted in.

Another fun thing to do using this folding method, is to make vertical creases for tree trunks.

Crease the paper where you want a tree trunk. Wet it. Then use a dropper to drop in either dark paint or some ink. Here is my result. I like the way paint spreads into the wrinkles to look like small branches.

I didn't get a lot of photos from students, but here is one to show a vertical

landscape.

After you have painted as much as you want to on the masa, dry it and mount it on another sheet of watercolor paper (this is where I use my cheaper cuts of paper). You can also mount on mat board, canvas, wood panel that has been gessoed, and other surfaces. I like YES paste to glue on, but Aleene's glue, Matte medium, or other glues are fine. 

When gluing, apply the glue to the support, not the masa.

Gently press the masa to the support.

Put a piece of wax paper over the painting and roll with a brayer to remove air bubbles.

I usually dry it overnight, upside down on some wax paper, with some weight on top. It dries pretty flat that way. 

Other blogs that discuss masa paper are: 

March 2021

March  12, 2020

Sep 13, 2019

Aug 30, 2019

Fall Scene with trees

 I have a post to describe this process. You can look at August 13, 2020. I did it while we were in COVID mode, and I was doing Zoom classes. So check out that post for this fun wet in wet project.

The July 5 of 2016 post will show some student work doing a winter scene using this process. Also March 23 of 2018. 

Below are a few from that lesson in July 5, 2016.

Ideas to finish the Owl

Here is what the owl looked like when I finished the last bit of work. I was happy with it, but I wanted more softness around the beak and eyes. 

The first thing I did was lift and soften paint around the eyes with a lifting brush. I lifted some of the white across the right (to me) side of the nose and eye to indicate the bone line in that area.

Then I put a light wash of the blue and purple colors in that large white area above the beak and salted it with POPCORN salt, which gives a very soft effect. 

I added a dark ridge of feathers along the left side. I darkened under the eye to the right of the page, still using the 3 colors I started with. (purple, turquoise, and quin burnt scarlet)

I began to add some black and dark browns to the feathers on the forehead and other places I felt needed it. I began to strengthen the color around the white feathers on the eye left on the page.

I also began to paint some darks beneath his chest feathers. 

left eye detail

head feathers detail

My background was white, but I wanted to demonstrate how to make corrections, especially in the shape of the figure, with a dark background. So I mixed a black. I wet a few inches at a time, being careful around the outside shape. I painted in black a few inches at a time, and with a detail brush, pulled the dark paint into the sides of the owl to create whiskery feathers. I worked around the shape a little at a time. 

When everything was dry, I used a tattoo needle - you can use a craft knife/razor blade -- to scratch in feathers along the eye. 

I ran a wet brush across the body to soften some of the feathers. Then I added some darks. Also note that I added tiny brush strokes around this left eye to darken the feathers there. I used white pastel to reclaim some of my white feathers.

Here they are side by side. 

Below, you can see how I used black pastel to get really dark around the background. I also used a little white pastel to bring out some

white feathers in the body, and some black to some of the feather tips.

Below I did the owl (what, again?) only this time on gesso. I applied a coat of gesso to paper, then for texture, I crinkled some plastic wrap, set it on the wet gesso, then pulled it up again and let the gesso dry.

I wanted the eyes smooth, so where it was rough, I lightly sanded the gesso in the eyes. I haven't done anything beyond the basics, but I love how the color reacts on the gesso. And I like how easy it is to wipe away whites, even with staining colors. This was a process very similar to the zebra found in my September post.