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Friday 30 August 2013

Back to Grey

After all that bright colour, I've reverted back to my safety zone and made a card in, well I was going to say neutrals but it's more apt to say, grey. Yes, on celebrating your special day, you could find yourself opening an envelope and see staring back at you, a grey colourless card.

And do you know who's to blame? Who it is that has inspired my Dorothy-at-home-in-Kansas colour(less) palette? Mark Gould! That's who.

You see Mark is disgustingly talented and creates the best projects which you'll find posted over on his delightfully arty blog, Spesh Ink. He has a wonderfully wicked and macabre side to him and he's also a dab hand at producing the grooviest textures and backgrounds. And it's this, his fabulous Buddha Head that fired up my mojo.

He briefly describes in the post how he achieved the painted effect and having some little knowledge myself of the process he used, thought I'd give it a whirl. But I wanted to create something more in keeping with my clean, graphic love.

And here's what I came up with...



I took the idea of painting a piece of card with black gesso and then stippling it with the paintbrush to give it texture. I added a few larger blobs of the gesso over it as well. Not having the patience to wait for paint to dry, I carefully wafted my heat gun over the piece until it was a mere millisecond away from being set alight.

I then took my acrylic paints (I used Pebeo's Studio Acrylics, I just love the thick, creamy consistency of them) taking a grey and white and dry brushing over the black background. For those scratching their heads and wondering what the heck dry-brushing entails, you load a brush with paint, then apply to a scratch piece until most of it has gone. Then you gently run the brush over the intended art surface with a light application and a gentle build up of colour is transferred, highlighting the texture.




After attaching the textured piece to my card, I turned my attention to the speech bubbles. These were made with a die set from Penny Black. I took a piece of grey card and printed the words which I generated using Adobe InDesign software and ran it through my Big Shot with the dies.

I stuck them on with foam stickies to make them stand out and I was going to leave it at that. However, I had these paper dots sitting around on my workspace and well, I thought I'd see what they looked like within the design. And they worked, so I added these too.

And there you have it. Really pleased I was able to take inspiration from Mark and use it in my own style. And I promise I'll try and add a bit of colour next time.

Thanks for dropping by

10 comments:

Sue said...

I adore this card, both the sentiment and the background. Well done you.

kjjc said...

Just love that sentiment Paul. It appeals to my humour (or lack of). Love the mono look. Happy birthday by the way for the weekend.

Neil said...

Absolutely brilliant! Love it. You've got the dry brushing brilliantly and I think the card and sentiment is just FAB!

mark gould said...

What a great idea to use the textured panel for a card Deffo one of my fave colour combos, mute black n gray, I love how it picks out every piece of detail. I love the senti too.
Thanks for the shout out, and I am happy to have provided some inspiration.

World of Michael Trent said...

I love love love this textured background. Never think of doing textured backgrounds but, after seein this post, will be doing them soon. Great card!!

Michele said...

What a great card! Fab textured background and I love the touch of humour with the sentiment x

Sharli Schaitberger said...

Awesome card! The texture is fabulous - I must try this at home.

Hugs!

JoZart Designs said...

Fabulous texture you created.
Hope you are enjoying a special day today
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Jo x

Kay Wallace said...

Even your "gray" has class, Paul! Nicely done!

Unknown said...

I don't often type 'LOL' but this card deserves one... LOL!