Blackened Canvas

Sounds like a New Orleans entree', but it's really a fun art technique. One of my PAO friends directed me to this blog entry on Ink Stains  and I have been thinking about trying it for weeks. Finally got around to it this week end and I love the results. I even fell in love with the same Andy Skinner face stencil and had to order that (plus a few more, of course). I decided to do this in an existing art journal that I have some blank pages in so you'll notice a difference in sizes of the two sides. Here is the finished page with details below.

You start by adding texture to your base layer. The left side is canvas paper and the right side is handmade paper that has a texture like crumpled paper bag already. I added some tissue, napkins and torn cotton balls.

Then I stenciled with moulding paste with my new Andy Skinner stencils and a Club Scrap one that looks like open weave fabric.

Next you paint everything black with acrylic paint that has been watered down slightly, just so it flows into all the cracks and crevices. (Sorry, forgot to take a pic of that step) Add, some ephemera, broken jewelry bits, metal bits, etc. and test out the position of a picture or 2. Since this is in a journal, I tried to keep my bits fairly flat, but you could go as lumpy as you want.

And.......paint everything black again. Really looks good, huh? thought it was going to be a good candidate for the round file at this point, but I kept plugging along.

Now, comes the fun part. Get out your metallics. I had some silver and gold paints and a set of metallic rub on creams. If using paint, make sure you're using a dry brush that you've wiped almost all the paint off of first; we're going for highlighting the texture here.

 I added some more bling after gluing my pictures and words down. It just looked like it needed a little more sparkle.

I will definitely be trying this again!