Inverted art

I remember waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when I was barely tall enough to reach the dining table, we did a project in class where you were allowed to what whatever colour wherever you wanted to on a piece of paper. Then you coloured the whole thing black ; then, when you drew on top with a pointed object, all these BURSTS of colours happened like MAGIC! I forget what the lesson of that exercise was....

It was probably the messiest project I ever made but it was the most fun and I was so sad when I ran out of space to draw more on but it was just too much work to make another page....

Anyhow.

This little spread reminds me of that project and is essentially the same idea. Its definitely not my idea - it's been circulating around the web and I thought what fun would it be to make a spread of that for a quote I try to live by!?  THAT WOULD BE AWESOME . 

So, without fail I found time somewhere and went scavenge hunting at the 4 dollar store near my home and came home with these: two cling alphabet stamps , one with sentiments ( I need to stop buying alphabet anything),  a pack of 4 sheets of foam alphabet stickers, a 10 sheet pack of letter labels and a 20 year date stamp - all for under $2 each. I didn't understand why people dated anything but I realized now - especially with anything that requires practice - it's good to date them so that you can look back and see how you've improved. You can write them ,but sometimes you forget and sometimes there is just not the appropriate place to write it in. Date stamp - the ink will reflect and show - and it was $2, I wasn't crying if I forget to use it or lose it.

Anyway. This is how it's done.

You cover a page with some colour - it could even be,a beautiful picture from a magazine stuck on to a page. In my case, I used a page in my planner(where I try out everything , plan , doodle -its really my "everything" book) that I had tried out some Crayola watercolour pencils I had around and it wasn't bad....but I never knew what to do with that page.  This was going to work out perfectly; and I painstakingly stickered my mantra/motto/ of a quote. This took 8 sheets of labels, if it had taken 8 sheets of stickers (what I was originally going to get) which can ring up $2+ per sheet, I may have cried.

Once you're all stickered up, you cover cover up with either a dark or light colour.

I found that a dark cover up works best if your picture /background is pale and visa versa.

Any paint will do, but I found that acrylic or oil paint does the best job in coverage as it is denser. Even a dollar store acrylic will do better than watercolours or craft paint (to my surprise) as used here. I tried here water color then craft paint on one page then covered the whole bit in acrylic paint.

Once the paint is dry...the fun of peeeeeling the stickers off to reveal the colour underneath begins.

Ta da ~

ISN'T THIS AWESOME?!

And awesome point about date stamp - I couldn't see the ink from stamp all that well so I stamped on a piece of post it note and stuck it on in the corner and it fits in with everything PERFECTLY.

I was so happy about how easy this was, less messy it was and turned into a lingering issue at the back of my head into an instant favourite spread. So I had to try it again in my journal.
This time I used a page that I had covered with some left over paint - incredibly bright orange paint from the dollar store that I love, but rarely had use for and was glad to be out of it but still couldn't waste.
You think your eye hurts now? Just you wait.


I covered this  spread with the foam stickers. I learned couple of things from this exercise.
1. If you have a darker tone and a lighter colour over it (like I have ) its a good idea to go over that dark area with another bright colour gesso, especially if you plan to use black or dark over colour.
2. Foam stickers are not ideal for this project as leaves residue and stretches out of shape :(
3. Don't use contrasting colors of stickers, it will give you a headache.

Cover in color. I ran out of black paint at some point.
So I just used whatever other dark tones I had - browns, blues...whatever. Then peeel.

ta da~~~~
I love the contrast in this piece. It's so in your face, just like the message.

 Remember that lesson about the foam stickers leaving residue?
Here you are. These suckers are tricky to peel because it IS made of a thin, stretchy piece of foam and it does not want to come off. Even just to reposition the stickers it lost a lot of shape which was not great but not horrible.

As well, because it is soft in material it also allowed for a lot of paint to seep through which was definitely a minus but it gave the letters some character so I guess it's okay.

When trying to peel these suckers off, I found that it's somewhat but not really easier - to take a heat gun or blow dryer to warm up the adhesive before attempting to peel.

I wasn't sure if this was a good idea but I really had to try it out and foam stickers were the only ones that came in the size I thought I wanted (which turned out tad to big in the end) but hey, I had to try it right? I am so glad I did.


Hope you liked,

Love always,
Shines