{Mixed Media Tutorial} Smooshing with Watercolors by Amy

Good afternoon everyone, Amy here, with a fun art journal page using the Smooshing Technique and watercolors!

I started with a cute little kids Book I bought at the dollar store as it had MDF pages that could withstand some heavy mediums and I liked the mini size! :o) Use heavy white gesso to create a base for your page. 

I tore strips of an academic calendar and adhered to the pages with matte gel. Once dry, I applied some gesso mixed with water to soften the text into the background. 

Here's the fun part! ;o) Spritz your journal page and a piece of acetate with a water mister and apply your watercolor (Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors used here) to the acetate..a little goes a long way, so not much watercolor is needed. SMOOSH the acetate to your journal page in random areas. Dry in between layers with a heat tool allows for  layering of different colors.  

Once dry, apply texture paste thru the Just Squares stencil and let dry completely.

While your page is drying, stamp out your focal images for your page. Here, I used the small and medium butterflies from the Trendy Butterflies 2 set. Stamp one set (base butterflies) onto watercolor paper with Memento black ink and another set (top layer butterflies) onto acetate with black StazOn ink. Color your  base butterflies with watercolor- I used the same Pink that I smooshed earlier in Step 3. Fussy Cut your butterflies and set aside. 

Use some die cuts to "showcase" your butterflies- Used TH Sizzix Festive Scribbles Circle here. Adhere your butterflies as desired. For the acetate butterflies, just apply a  small amount of clear glue along the body for the butterfly. Once dry, you can mold the wings for dimension, while still allowing your journal page to close as they lie flat when the journal is closed. ;o)

Stamp out a sentiment from the Trendy Butterflies 2 set with a coordinating ink that matches the watercolor you used in your background. I stamped the sentiment twice in order to cut it apart and inked the edges with Black Soot Distress ink. Adhere your sentiment to the page and ink/paint around the edges of your pages to create a border to frame your pages- Black Soot Distress paint used here. Edge your sentiment on your page with a marker and use enamel to create your butterfly antennae's, that were cut off in the fussy cutting process. 

And there we have it, a fun Journal Page with a vibrant background created by Smooshing Watercolors! :o)

Don't forget you can use code STAMPGIRLAMY to save 20% in the STAMPlorations online shop. :o)
 

STAMPlorations products used: 

  

Other products used: 

Art Journal, Heavy White Gesso, Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors, Texture Paste, Palette Knife, Text paper, Stampin' Up Ink, Memento Black Ink, StazOn Black Ink, Distress Paint/Ink in Black Soot, Acetate, Watercolor paper, Scissors, TH Sizzix Festive Scribbles Circle die, Nuvo Black Enamel, Sharpie Marker, Soft Matte Gel, Clear Tacky Glue and paintbrushes.