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In recent crusades you may have noticed I've been breaking down elements of my own process. I've tried to isolate techniques and provide visual and verbal tutorials. I certainly don't think I'm a pioneer in any of these processes - my hope was to either encourage you to try something new, to remind you about something you haven't done in a while, or to motivate you to just get plugged back in to making stuff. I also think that if we all are trying out a specific process at the same time we will not only appreciate what other crusaders share, but we will learn from each other.

At my studio table I work intuitively, usually without giving much thought to the evolution, layers, complexity or simplicity. I have given it some consideration, and have tried to observe and define the simple steps I use when making journal pages or painted canvases. One of my favorite discoveries was made when I just took some time to learn from acrylic paint. I wanted to achieve a painterly surface - one where there was evidence of an artist's hand. I'm impatient, and often my attempts of brush-stroked textures would result in muddy yucky messiness. I wanted brushy messiness, with defined color, not mucky nothingness.

As I said, I took some time, and taught myself that monoprinting gives a handsome brush effect while maintaining color definition. I also learned that if a surface is dry you can dry brush in some color - particularly useful when you need to tone down something in a compostion that isn't quite working, or to fill in a blank space. I'll begin by showing you a piece I did some years ago that incorporates several brush effects. I hope you'll agree that it is much more interesting because of the brushed effects than if I had just stamped the image on a plain background.

When you look at the detail you can see some cool brush strokes. These were not made directly with a brush - instead, I brushed paint onto a sheet of acetate, then monoprinted it onto the surface. Somehow this trick helps retain the integrity of the color and the brush effect.

In the next sample you can see the difference between dry brush and monoprinting. Dry brushing is exactly what it sounds like - dip a brush in paint, scudge some of it off on scratch paper until it is mostly dry, then rub across your surface. It's better to be too dry than too wet. You can aways add more paint to the brush - but too wet of a surface is what leads to muddy issues.

Once I started using monoprinting as a means of getting paint to my page I started getting excited about monoprinting with shapes, even the back sides of stencils. I think the monoprinted stencil looks cooler than the actual stencil. How to do it? Place your stencil over scratch paper and heavily paint across surface. Quickly flip over onto your page and place another scratch paper over it and rub. If you don't use the scratch paper you will probably rub paint INTO the stencil, something you want to avoid. Brushing paint onto a stamp then monoprinting to a page is often more interesting than just plain ink on a stamp. The painted impression works better over paint anyway - but the image you use has to be a bold one - like those you have carved.

So what is dirty brushing? I don't believe it's a technical term - I just made it up. It's something that happens to you after you've been working a while and all your brushes seem to be filled with more than one color. I use dirty brushes on purpose. I will dip one edge in one color and the other edge in another color. What comes out on your page is serendipity - much more interesting than a solid color.

There are many paint effects that can be achieved with your brush - or with other tools to get paint on your page. I like to use credit cards to scrape paint onto a page, and I like to drip paint from a watery brush - and in a pinch I will just scudge right in with my fingers.

A few more samples - and a tip: keep your monoprinting material, whether you use acetate or just scratch paper - it becomes an interesting element to keep as matching collage fodder.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to just mess around with paint and brushes. Work on several pages at once, giving the paint time to dry. Try dry brushing and monoprinting and see what works for you in order to make painterly brush-stroke-y backgrounds. I'm sure many of you have already done this - great! Show us what you've learned, or what your favorite thing is in a new post explaining the process. Maybe you have a page that you are not quite satisfied with - try adding a few dry brushed strokes in the blank areas and see if that makes you happy. However you decide to interpret this crusade just make a blog post or a flickr entry and leave a comment here with a link to your site. I will create a link list with all participants, newest at top. Keep up the Team Spirit by leaving your cheerleading comments when you visit other crusaders.

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CRUSADE No. 29 ~ Brush Effects

CRUSADE No. 29

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