Weathered Background Technique

In yesterday's post, I made a tag with a weathered background, inspired by Gentleman Jim's Post. As I said, I'd tried this out in several ways on cardstock, with less than successful results. Finally, it gelled and I ended up with the result I was after. Mind you, after telling you all about it, I really didn't show you the whole tag before I covered it with embellishments. So here's a mini tutorial with a shot at the end of a naked tag, displaying only the background technique.

To begin, I used white cardstock with a linen texture. It doesn't matter what colour card you use as it's going to be coated with acrylic paint. The textured element is not essential but it does give an extra appearance of realism to the final result. Here, I added a couple of coats of dark brown acrylic paint (I use Pebeo Studio Acrylics but don't go out and buy these especially. Use what you already have). Let the paint dry between coats. You can use a heat tool if you wish.

Take a candle, and rub wax over the whole piece. I kept the strokes in one direction, along the length. Pay particular attention to the edges, where they benefit best from the weathered look. 

Take a lighter colour, in my example I used titanium white, and apply two coats of acrylic paint. Let the paint air dry between coats. Do not use a heat tool as it will melt the wax layer underneath.

When the paint has dried, take a cloth or, as in my case, a sheet of paper towel and begin to rub away at the paint. Try it lightly in some areas and really go for it in others. Adjust the pressure to suit the amount of paint you wish to remove. Again, I only worked in one direction, along the length. If you use a textured card, you will now begin to see that the white paint remains in the nooks and crannies, giving an added depth to the effect.

And there you go. A weathered background ready for you to use. I've shown you one way to create this effect but you can play around applying the candlewax with varying strokes as you can too with the the brush/sponge paint application and in the removal of the top layer with a cloth. Try different card, including smooth. You may even find it gives you an even better effect. And there's no rules to say you have to use the colours I've opted for. If you wish to apply fuchsia pink over a bilious lime green, just go for it.

Have a wonderful, creative day my friends

Paul x