April Technique - Acrylic Varnish and Mica Powder Backgrounds

One on the top is red rosin paper backing and the bottom is brown paper. You can click on the pict to get a larger view.

This is the April Monthly Art Technique (MAT) for the Art Techniques group. If you click on the title, then it will lead you to Susan Chong's Tutorial to do this technique. I will give it to you anyway here: http://tinyurl.com/2em4l5.

I tried it with brown, paper wrapper I had laying around, red rosin paper, and textured paper wallpaper. It did not work with the wallpaper because I did not get that crumpled look. I will need to go back and work it some more after it has dried. Actually, the best one was using my red rosin paper. Use a big plastic tarp to prevent spills getting on your floor/carpet.

I did not have varnish so I used some Golden's soft gloss with some water mixed in. I only had the metallic colors in Pearl Ex - aztec gold, copper, bronze, and mink (of course). They worked well. It wasn't until I was done that I realized I had the Perfect Powders or whatever they are called for using with UTEE. I did mix in some interference oxide green fluid acrylic and some iridescent metal colors in with the gloss wash. I figure they are nice and shiny, too.

I did the crumpling first and then a layer of the gloss wash with Pearl Ex. I just dumped some Pearl Ex in different sections of the gloss wash and didn't even bother to mix it. I got several color mixtures at once. Did the same thing with paints and wash. I tried to let it dry. Crumple again.

I then used several colors of the Adirondack color wash on it. I let it sit on the paper for several minutes to soak in and then used paper towels to dab the excess. I let that dry.

I think that this step really added to it. Once it was all dry, I crumpled it again a couple of times and uncrumpled. I did not really flatten it out to get the texture. On the brown, paper wrapper, the different colors and highlights did not come out as well, so I mixed up some more gloss wash with pearl ex and lightly went over some of the areas to get some different colors and highlights. I then crumpled again and I liked the results much better then.

BTW, do not handle it too much while wet. I put several holes into mine while crumpling because it was too damp. The red rosin paper was much more fragile than the brown paper. You might want to let it dry completely before handling.

Comments welcome.