October Theme
Translucent Papers
Week 44 – October 31
Art Challenge: Tea Bags, Dryer Sheets, Fibrous Papers
Journal Prompt: Just Create!
I really love it when you can sit down and “just create” without it being a job, a commission, or art “on demand!” For this week’s challenge, I gave myself permission to play – just for fun, just for me!
The fibrous paper I decided to use was tea bags! I had a box of large tea bags in my pantry so I opened up 6 of them and emptied them out. I used the tea from just one bag to brew in boiling water. Once the water boiled, I put all of the opened, empty tea bags in the water and let it sit over night. When they were a nice vintage tea-stained color in the morning, I opened them up on paper towels and let them dry.
I decided to stamp all over my blank page in my art journal with a favorite script stamp and then I added a few butterflies and a dragonfly. I used permanent black india ink to stamp with and used my heat gun to set the ink so it wouldn’t smear.
Next, I used a clear gel medium to paint onto the page and adhered the tea bags, overlapping them randomly. I also painted gel medium over top of the tea bags. I let all of this dry for several hours so I would have a nice firm surface to sketch on.
Using a dark, soft lead pencil – I sketched a face among the butterflies. I love how the bumps in the tea bag helped to create rough lines and edges in my sketch.
To paint my face, I used Inktense watercolor pencils to “color” the face. The Inktense pencils are bursting with pigment and I love the vibrancy when I paint over the colored marks with a damp paintbrush.
I continued to paint until my little lady came to life! Once it was dry, I used a spray fixative to seal the page! That’s it – just creating in a simple way! I can’t wait to see what you all create this week using your fibrous papers!
I am so very pleased to share the work of Lynne Hoppe this week, an artist with incredible talent and a gracious heart! You can find the link to Lynne’s challenge HERE.
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