Kill Your Monday Blues with Hils Hints: All Things Distress Part 9

All Things Distress

Part 9 

Distress Inks, and why they are so special

.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

More distress marker techniques for you this week – I bet you hadn’t realised they were quite so versatile!  

This time, I’m going to show you two colouring-in methods.  They are both pretty similar, but give different effects. 

Next week I’ll show you two more before moving on to another distress product.

.

what do you need?

.

.

distress markers

water colour paper

(definitely works best for these techniques)

A stamp – rubber or cling tend to work best with distress products.  

(The one I have used this time is Heart Winged Butterfly from Hero Arts.)

A mini mister, with water

Water brush, or just a normal paintbrush and water

{Items can be purchased at Scrap-n-Crop.com HERE}

.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

.

Instructions:

..

Technique ONE

Stamp onto watercolour paper, using waterproof ink.  Ranger’s Archival Ink works best, though there are other types you can use.  You could also stamp and emboss with embossing powder if you prefer.

Colour in the stamped image with a few distress markers.  You don’t need to worry about colouring it perfectly, leaving white gaps, or going over the edges.

Using a water brush, or a paintbrush with water, paint over the coloured areas, light to dark.  This will blend the inks together.

.

.

I’ve taken two photos to show you the effect.  The first shows the butterfly simply coloured and brushed over.  The second shows it after I have sprayed it with a bit more water (from a mini mister), and blended distress ink around it.  Notice that the distress ink has NOT gone over the coloured areas – this is because, once they are dry, the markers resist the ink!  Pretty clever!  You can also see that my ink has spread outside the butterfly quite a bit – that’s OK, this is a watercolour effect we are after, and so it doesn’t matter.

.

Technique TWO

Stamp onto watercolour paper with waterproof ink.

This time, wet the paper BEFORE colouring in.  You can do this with a mini mister, or with a waterbrush/water-loaded paintbrush. You need to get the balance right – too little water and the technique won’t work that well, too much and you can’t colour it.

Colour with your distress markers.

.

I’ve included a photo of this as well, so that you can see the difference.  In my examples, technique 1 gives a lighter, more washed out effect, although according to Tim Holtz (who created the distress range), it is supposed to be the other way around.  I think it probably depends on what colours you use, and of course how much water you use.

..

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

…

I have to be honest and say that I’m not that keen on technique two, for a number of reasons.  I found it much harder to control the amount of water on the paper.  Plus, when I used the markers, even though I used them gently they tended to rough up the paper a bit, ie tiny bits of paper were coming away.  This doesn’t look great, and I’m not sure if it is good for the markers either.  It might make no difference to them, but it’s something to bear in mind.

.

 .

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Handy tip

- - - - - - - - - - - -

.

By the way, in case you are wondering what the difference is between a water brush, and a paintbrush used with water, the answer is convenience.  With a paintbrush and water, you have to keep dipping the brush into the water.  With a water brush, you get a constant flow of water while you are painting with it.  It’s worth paying a little bit extra for your water brush – the cheapest ones don’t regulate the flow very well, so sometimes you can end up with way too much water on your paper.  I use a Pentel one which has a valve in it to help control flow.  Tim Holtz has also just released two water brushes, with different tips, which have flow-controlling valves.

.

..

.