Hi everyone! Long time, no post! Haha, I’ve been busy with jewelry making and life. I’m still trying to make it through my old footage before moving on to newer experiments. This one was from Summer of 2023.
In this case I had worked on a technique where I used what I call the Distress Oxide Resist technique, then pulled some molding paste over a mask and ended up with this really cool kind of Two-Tone look. Then I took the results of that and I printed it out on inkjet printable rice paper. In the first experiment I used Distress collage medium to adhere the rice paper to a printed piece of paper. I used one of Tim Holt’s collections with some lettering and I wanted the script to show through. So I put plain collage medium on the paper itself, adhered the rice paper to it, and then came back over it with Distress collage medium- the crazing version. They don’t sell this anymore, but I still have some and I love it.It does a really fine crackle when you use it over top.
When it dried I noticed I couldn’t really see any of the writing underneath, so I wasn’t sure if there wasn’t enough contrast or if it was something else. In the video I try a few things- stamping my own background with a script stamp and Archival black ink, using a different background, etc.
Ultimately what I determined is that to get the see through results that I wanted, at least with this inkjet printable rice paper, I needed to spritz the rice paper with water before adhering it to the background. This made the rice paper much more translucent, and t stayed that way after adhering with the Distress Collage medium. It did not go translucent with just the collage medium.
Another thing that I found while experimenting, was that the crazing or crackle medium did not crackle. At all! I assume it is because the rice paper doesn’t shrink as much as regular paper or maybe the coating to enable it to be printed on does something weird? In the end I didn’t waste any of my fancy crackle mediums on this technique, because I would just be wasting them when a plain medium would work. I can use the mediums to add texture, but not crackle. It’s too bad because crackle in spots would have been cool! Although, I can always scan the result and re-print on regular paper. 😉
So if you are struggling with trying to use rice paper and having it see through to a layer underneath, try spritzing it with water before you adhere!
Also, as I determined while doing the last experiment to confirm the spritz with water was the ticket, double check your background layer before adhering in case it is too busy. Of course if you are printing your own, you can always re-do.
Enjoy!
