Diana Trout's blog

Simple Tips & Tricks for Acrylic Painting

Learn tips about acrylic painting supplies in today's videos. I've been trying Dylusions and Dina Wakely Media paints from Ranger. The color and pigment load seem very good at an affordable price point!*

Paint the background with me in this blogpost/video. 

I mixed a few greens lightly together just till the colors were streaky. When you load your brush you'll have several colors on the brush and a more interested paint load. I used a lot of greens, blues and St. Quinacridone Gold. I don't know how, but this color makes everything better. I highly recommend it in your arsenal. 

Black paint should always be mixed with either blue, green or red. It needs to be knocked back a little. Otherwise you create a black hole. As usual, this is a rule that can be broken. Understand the rule and then break it to your advantage. 

Yellow is another color that makes everything better. When you mix yellow with white, leave it streaky again. It will retain that sparkle. I'm not sure why but, in my experience, over-mixing colors deadens them. Painting and pancakes. I like the Hansa Yellow. It's pretty transparent. When you mix in Titanium white, it becomes more opaque.

Speaking of opacity, Golden's Glazing Medium is a basic supply for me. It increases the open time of the paint and adds transparency. You may not need/want that though. 

You can see the transparency in this picture. I went over this with stamping after the paint was dry.

I've never used the best brushes with acrylic (or oil) painting. Clean them well, don't leave them sitting in water and you'll be fine. I like using the Master's brush cleaner and loads of folks like Murphy's Oil soap. Wet your brush, swirl it in the Master's then swirl the bristles in the palm of your hand. Rinse and repeat as necessary. If you use the Murphy''s, keep it in a small jar so you can dip the bristles right in. 

*I couldn't get any information from Ranger about lightfastness or pigmentation so I still wouldn't use it for canvases that you are selling.

Enjoy the video. Affiliate links are below. 

Watch on Youtube (there is a good oldie - from 2011 - in the cards, top right corner of video)

Affiliate Links used. I get a percent of sale with no cost to you.

Haul Time

I love art and craft supplies and they are my single extravagance. I do budget myself at about $10-$15 per week. Sometimes I over-indulge and that leads to a spending freeze for a couple of months.  This gets a little tricky at times because, right now, I need gel medium. Does that come out of my budget or should I fudge it on my budget?

The Nuvo Embellishment Mousses were a bit of a surprise as you'll see from the video. They can be used as paint and spray mist too. I'll see how much I can do with them. Beautiful shimmery metallic color can be applied straight up or diluted and mixed into a spray.

I'll be experimenting a bit more with them. It seems that (so far) Stayz On inks will stamp over them. You can see that the feathers (above) lost a lot of detail when I used dye and Archival Inks.

 

Ranger's Liquid Pearls (LP) are luscious. They come in small bottles with a fine tip so you can draw with them or use them as paints too. On the following (unfinished) journal page, I used a foam stamp with Distress Oxide Ink. The ink was still wet when I applied the LP and the LP's activated the DO and the colors blended. Oh joy of mixed media! 

I wasn't going to buy the DO but then I did. I love the distress colors and am happy to get them in opaque pigment inks. But ... well make your own decisions. I know the hype is that they react with water and are a hybrid. They play nicely with dye and distress inks but so do regular pigment inks. Think carefully about what you "need." 

I used them for the background on these tags, heat set them and then stenciled over using the Embellishment Mousse (which is not only a long name but kind of a puzzling one. This tag was gesso'd, Distress Inked, then stenciled with the Mousse. I really love this effect and more layers can be added. 

Another question I ask is "where is this new supply going to live?"  

How do you make purchasing decisions? Do you have a strategy? Do you budget? I'm in a unique position with product coming in frequently from companies and such. Do you enjoy haul videos?  

Affiliate links used. I get a percent of sale at no cost to you.

Cheap Date with Paint

Sometimes all you need is some paper, a brush and cheap paint. It's nice, ya' know? No expectations, all play. I was all set to disparage these paints (while pushing up my glasses and looking down my nose). 

Nope. I like 'em and I like that they are accessible for everyone. Give them to your two year old. 

These paints leave a chalky finish and don't behave like watercolors. At all :) But they are conveniently packaged paints.  These would make a kid's community project or senior's program possible. I'm all for that!

By the way, I don't recommend Artists Loft brushes. They shed like crazy.

These are some very pretty colors, right?! Enjoy the video. I got inspired by my pieces of paper and am making an art journal project with them. Stay tuned for that video. Here's the video.

Affiliate links are used. I get a percentage of the sale with no cost to you.

Sumptuous Painted Paper

Three cheers to paint all the paper! I taught this class again a couple of weekends ago in the studio. It's a spin-off of my Playful Papers dvd and I have taught many variations. You can see pictures from the class here.

The process is pretty straight forward. Take paints and inks and spritz, drop, paint, spread around, drip, print, stencil. It's just good fun really.  Everything winds up looking fab. Watch your color families. Stay in analogous (neighborhood) color: red, orange, yellow or blues and greens. You don't really want mud here. 

The papers are great for collage, journaling, cards, mixed media canvases or any paper projects. I've made flower collages from them and used them for paper cloth. Or a tag book: good stuff. 

Enjoy the video. And check out that neat little extra technique I discovered. Spray the water through a stencil, lift the stencil and then spray the in. Very cool look. Supply list is below along with links to the other two blog posts on this topic - my inky holiday hauls :)

Use what you have. The following supply list are affiliate links. I get a % of the sale at no cost to you. Thanks for your support.

Liquitex Muted Inks Haul and Review

Gather your waterbrushes and join me for another ink video. Today I'm taking a look at Liquitex new line of Muted Ink Colors. There are five colors in this group and they are Drool Worthy. (Don't sip your ink.)

You can see where I used them on my wee house sketch. They really drop into the background with the pearlescent inks I used. So Exciting! It's enough to make me jump for joy. (No jumping today though, that dang-ed muscle in my back is pulsing away.)

This paper is a combo piece on rough paper. Notice the  bounce on this paper: the high spots are darker than the low spots. That makes the backgrounds so interesting, I think.

Here's the video. All of the supply links are below. You can see Part 1 of The Big Ink Haul here and watch the first video here. 

Affiliate links used. At no cost to you, I get a % of sale. Thanks.

Shimmery Ink Haul and Review

Shimmery shiny sumptuous inks. Oh my, yes. Today's video is all about the ink. My family gathered forces and it rained ink on Christmas morning. Today's inks are from the Rowney Daler Pearlescent line and they are gorgeous. These are acrylic inks and I'm unclear on what exactly makes up an ink in the chemical sense.

Technical Stuff:

These inks are pigment based and more lightfast than the dye inks you get in most markers. This is only important if your're selling your artwork. You don't want someone to buy your artwork and then watch it face. The lightfast factor does vary amongst pigments. Dyes are not lightfast. So the inks in your Distress, Tombow, alcohol markers and Jane Davenport's new (and very yummy) brush markers are not lightfast. 

The dye inks are fine in your scrapbooks and journals where they aren't exposed to light. Cards aren't meant for longevity but I've had some hanging in my house for more than two years now and they are just fine. No real big worries. 

I'll have more to say in the next post and video about this topic. In the meantime, here's today's video.  

Affiliate links: I get a % of sale at no cost to you. Use what you have but if you need/want something, thanks for using my links.

Cardmaking Supplies

This list for my cardmaking students. I will add to this list as needed. Items are from Simon Says Stamp, Ellen Hutson, Scrapbook.com, Bluemoon.com and Amazon. All of those shops are linked on the sidebar. I greatly appreciate it when you use my links as I get a kickback of the sale (at no cost to you). I will never link to a product that I haven't used and loved myself.

 

 

November Artsnacks and Epic Fail

Yummy Artsnack this month, including the Smartee candies that I nervously ate. I've eaten my way through a mountain of sugar over the last three weeks. Yikes.

Here is a list of the products:

Plumchester 1.t Fine Brush Pen $2.99: Very nice little brush pen. This is the first Artsnack exclusive product and Plumchester will launch in 2017. 

Marabu Mixed Media Art Spray: I love spray inks but man! this isn't the first time I had a Spray Ink Fail. My ink sprays are all ink/dyes so aren't opaque. This could be cool.

Stonehenge Watercolor Paper! I can't find it yet but it seems so nice. I'll let you know when it's available. Or you let me know if you find it.

 The Pentel Arts Sign Pen is good. Passed my test :)

Which brings us to the Molotow Grafx Aqua Ink Pump Softliner. At $14.95. It's pretty steep for me. It is high quality and worked beautifully on the watercolor paper, creating a very smooth background. It might be a Manga things - like the Copic markers. For people who are making art for reproduction. I don't do that but if you do, it's probably a great pen. I just can't find out if will fade like the Copics do. 

 

Too Little Too Late

Here is the video with the Fail and a blooper ending that I hope you find as amusing as I did. Affiliate links below. Diana Out :)

Pentel Arts Sign Pen Brush

Marabu Mixed Media Art Spray

Molotow GRAFX Aqua Ink Softliner

InLinkz.com

What's In My Pencil Case?

Inquiring minds will want to know!

So many pens, so many lines to draw. I'm going through some of my favorites today.

After making this video, I realized that Inktober is right around the corner and I'm participating this year. I feel a bit rusty on my basic drawing skills. I have another video about the sketchbook and pens that I'll use in addition to these. It'll be up later this week. 

And the video.

Check out information on InkTober here. It's pretty simple: Draw every day with a pen during the month of October, share with #Inktober if you want. Keep it to yourself if you don't :) Here are some affiliate links. I appreciate your using my links as I get a little percentage of the sale without any charge to you.

 

Mead Stand & Store Pencil Case	Caran d'Ache Technalo Watersoluble Pencil	Kneaded Eraser	Faber Castell Jumbo	Uni-Ball Signo, 14 color set
UniBall Signo, Silver Gold & White	Sarasa Gel Pens, Clip Asst'd Colors	Micron Asst'd Point Size Set

InLinkz.com

How to Avoid Artist's Block

One way to avoid an artist's block is to keep your hands busy even while your brain is on vacation.

In today's video, see a demo of the new Heidi Swapp toner based screen printing ink and mist. This is a good time of year (for me) to do small tasks, try things out and play in a not-so-focused way. This may be the best way to ward off artist's block. Especially for very busy people. Carving out a few minutes a day for any kind of artistic play puts you in the winners circle.

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Here area some affiliate links. Scrapbook.com had some really great prices on both the Mini Minc machine and MISTI stamping tool. (As of today, July 22). These are larger purchases. If you teach or share your tools, you can justify a purchase like this by sharing costs. I like them both a lot. As usual, use what you have. 

 

 

Ranger Archival Ink Pad PLUM AIP31499	Heidi Swapp - MINC Collection - Toner Mist	Heidi Swapp - MINC Collection - Art Screen - Lines	Heidi Swapp - MINC Collection - Art Screen - Floral	Heidi Swapp - MINC Collection - Art Screen Ink
Mini MISTI - Most Incredible Stamp Tool Invented	Heidi Swapp - MINC Collection - Starter Kit - 6 Inch Mini Foil Applicator	Hero Arts Color Layering SEAHORSE BUNDLE SB110	Hero Arts Clear Stamps COLOR LAYERING SEAHORSE CL956	Hero Arts Color Layering OCTOPUS CM104
Hero Arts Color Layering GOLDFISH BUNDLE SB109	Hero Arts Color Layering Frame Cuts OCTOPUS DI304	Therm O Web GOLD Deco Foil Transfer Sheets iCraft 51025

InLinkz.com