Art Prints Enhancement with Distress Mediums 9

Gelli Art Prints Enhancements 2

Happy Saturday! This is a follow on to another blog post/video. In the first one I took a printout that started as either a Gelli print or Distress Oxide resist print or anything really, scanned it in and then printed it out from the computer. I then painted over the printout with Distress Collage Medium, the crazing version. I love this stuff, and I am so sad it is not be being made anymore. It adds little tiny crackles easily. You can use the Distress Translucent Crackle medium instead now, although I still much prefer the crazing.

In the other post/video, I went over my printed piece with additional colors using Distress Crayons, but more in the neutrals or antiquing colors. Here I wanted to point out that you could use other colors- in this case I used Iced Spruce. So explore other colors to enhance crackles and the like.

Art Prints Enhancement with Distress Mediums 6
Art Prints Enhancement with Distress Mediums 6

The other idea that I wanted to pass along is that when I scan something in and then use it in Photoshop (or other photo editing program), I try to save edges. Lots of times the hand crafted backgrounds, whether made via the Gelli Plate or by spraying and wiping cards with Distress Sprays, the edges will not be clean. That is, they will not go all the way to the edge on all sides. In Photoshop, rather than scaling the prints to get rid of those raw edges, I leave them and print them that way. The prints then look more realistic, especially the Gelli Print ones. Sometimes they almost look like transfers.

I may try to do another post/video on how I use raw edges from one image to create a raw edge on another. I do that a lot in Photoshop.

After printing the image with the raw edge intact, I went over the printout with the Distress Collage Medium, crazing version. Then I brought in some Distress crayons in dark browns to really highlight that crazing. And this piece looked like a crackled transferred image- just the way I like it!

In the next example I started with a Distress Oxide resist (I have tons of videos on that) and scanned it and then printed it. I again went over the printout with Distress Collage Medium, the crazing version. The original piece utilized a stencil that I made from a Tim Holtz die. I just used the die to cut 2 pieces of Yupo paper that I glued together to make a stencil. Again I have tons of posts/videos on this idea.

I mention that I scan in backgrounds that I like so that I can print multiples if I need to- but I forgot to mention that this is for personal use.

I decided I wanted to use some ink (although it could be crayons etc.) over the top of the design to darken the blue stenciled image. However I forgot that I had changed the size in Photoshop because the scan was kind of wonky. When I went to stencil over the image, the stencil didn’t line up correctly. I had to re-seat the stencil several times, but I missed a couple of spots and the ink didn’t end up on the stenciled part of the design. Because I used an acrylic medium over the printout, it made lifting ink off easier. I was able to go in with some water on a brush and remove any ink where I was off kilter. I could just paint away the ink to soften it. Now, sometimes going off kilter is kind of a good thing because it looks like a shadow. But in this case, it was only in a couple of spots and I didn’t really want to leave it that way. So because of the acrylic medium, I can go in and touch it up and my boo boos are gone.

Art Prints Enhancement with Distress Mediums 8
Art Prints Enhancement with Distress Mediums 8

So adding acrylic mediums can allow you a little more workability with water based medium because you are basically sealing it. Just make sure it is one of the clear mediums like Distress Collage or Gel Medium. Opaque mediums like Distress Texture Paste and molding pastes will not work for this particular technique, although I do use it in some cases, for example on edges. One of the other reasons that I scan in my pieces and print them is that adding acrylic mediums over water based mediums can reactivate them. So if I don’t want to disturb, for instance, a Distress ink background because I like it just the way it is, I will scan, print and then use the medium on that.

Also, I talked a lot about bring in darker colors to highlight crazing or add shadows, but you can also take something like a crayon and add some highlights. So if I want to punch up the white areas a little bit, I can do that. I can either smudge on white or light Distress crayon onto the lighter areas to enhance them. Sometimes I bring a little bit of water into the crayon and let it float a little bit more, and maybe pounce it out. I could do this in Photoshop as well, but I find sometimes trying to mimic paints and inks etc in Photoshop looks a little artificial or stilted. Whereas using your physical art mediums on top of a scanned/printed version of your original allows for the more serendipitous flowing of paints and inks and crayons.

So, if have the ability to bring a background you’ve created into a photo editor and print it, you can continue to do work on it with your acrylic mediums and inks and paints and it will look handmade again.

Give it a try!
Enjoy!

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