Saturday, July 30, 2011

Smeared Pigments

Hello Everyone,

I have dug into my old projects I used to teach at the stamp store that use to be here. This is something that I called Smeared Pigments. This was long before the alcohol inks came about in the main stream. This is using Pigment Inks such as color box/cat eyes and Gamsol. What you do is just take some smooth but not glossy cardstock smear different colors of pigment inks onto the cardstock and then take a cosmetic sponge and dab a little of the Gamsol on it and smear the colors together. Let the cardstock dry well. I would say give it a good hour. They you can stamp or emboss on it.

Once mine was dry I gave a little spritz of homemade shimmer mist for a little sparkle.

This is my project that I am entering in the POM challenge over at The Outlawz. It is an anything goes challenge but you cannot use alcohol inks such as copic or promakers.


I went with a book marker. The picture makes it harder to see the real beauty of the background that you make by doing this technique. If you click on the picture and enlarge it you will see it a little better as well as on the last two pictures on this post. I used purple and blue cats eye pigments left some white then when I "smeared" the ink to blend together. It makes a very pretty background. I thought it was a good one for this image.



The more you try you will find what colors you like that blends the best together. The key is using the cosmetic sponge for your gamsol. It makes a smoother blend. You can use paper towels but will get a different effect.



I hope you will give this a try, make a bunch at one time then save them for when you need a background paper to stamp on.


This one was done with orange and light tan and a little yellow. After it dried I stamped and embossed this old Hero Arts image with white embossing powder.


This one was a lot of yellow and just a touch of purple in there.

Just an added note. If you are using your ink pad directly to the paper do your lighter colors first as so you don't stain your ink pad. Colorbox did make some tools that you could use if you have them. They were popular with the Magenta direct to paper craze was around. Let me know if you should have any questions regarding this technique.

Thanks for stopping by today. I might be back later with another card.

2 comments:

Sharri said...

Johann - I love the look of this technique and am going to give it a try! Thank you for sharing it!

Unknown said...

I have been spending the last hour on your blog and love your teaching! Your card is very pretty and I am going to try this technique! I have LOTS of Color Box inks! Hugz