Hi everyone!! Here is another post in a series on using different mediums on Yupo paper cutouts (cut using the Silhouette Curio- see my tips and tricks post on that here). As I have explained before, Yupo paper cuts beautifully on the Silhouette Curio, but when you try to color them using inks or stains, like my new favorite Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Sprays and Distress Stains, the ink does not dry well and so you usually end up with a slightly tinted, smeary mess of a cutout. So, in this series I am testing different paint mediums on the Yupo paper to see whether they will help hold onto the inks.
In this experiment I place the Yupo paper cutout on a plain piece of card stock and, with a pallete knife, spread gesso over the top of the cutout and the rest of the card stock. The gesso I used here (Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso) was an older one from days teaching at a Scrapbook/Stamp store and is no longer available. But any gesso should do, although one that has a thicker consistency would approximate better the results I achieved.
Using removable adhesive on the back of the cutout is extremely helpful in ensuring that the cutout doesn’t move- do as a I say not as I do, haha. When the background and cutout are covered to my liking, I use a pair of tweezers to lift the cutout off the background card stock. I don’t let them dry together and that way I end up with 2 different pieces. I can choose to later glue them together or use them in 2 different projects- so I call this a two-fer. Then I let the pieces dry.
The following photo was from my molding paste experiment which you can find here, but the process is the same for gesso.
In the video below, I used Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Sprays and Distress Stains to color the cutout and the background card, but you could use other inks or dyes or stains or paints. I also used a paintbrush to do some additional coloring to try to make some places a bit darker. The thick, white gesso made the stains look a lot lighter in value than they did with the light molding paste. Your coverage and values may vary depending on the gesso you use.
For reference, the colors I used in the Distress Oxide and Distress Spray Stains were Mermaid Lagoon, Rusty Hinge, Peeled Paint and Bundled Sage.
The featured image at the top of this post is the actual cutout with gesso then sprayed with Tim Holtz Distress Oxides Sprays and Distress Spray Stains. The final result was sprayed a couple of times. Here is the final background from this experiment…
Here is the video of this experiment. Enjoy!
Enjoy!
