playing with backgrounds

pearl paint, an art store chain which has been a staple for many a broke artist in san francisco is closing. even though they never explicitly said they are closing, it's not often a store has EVERYTHING 50% off. and they mean everything. i was eyeing stuff i wouldn't normally buy. unfortunately they no longer had any gel medium in stock. the store never quite had the best selection (somehow i always had to end up going to dick blick or to flax for it's paper room, which is amazing) but in a pinch pearl would do.

i ended up bought 2 big watercolor paper pads 15 x 20 inches and i knew they would be perfect for making backgrounds with acrylic inks.

using large sheets of paper, i dribbled and splattered and painted with acrylic inks. then i cut up the sheet into smaller pieces, for postcards. while i made the background i realized that while i did not always like the background, it always looked a lot better when i cut it up. the smaller details show up & suddenly the strokes look so much more interesting.


the other thing i do to create different brushstrokes is to use my non-dominant hand, which is my right hand. i also use different paintbrushes and materials such as tooth pics, string and anything else that can be dunked with ink and make markings with!





i also made backgrounds with pre-cut atc blanks. since atcs are so small, i would dribble some ink onto one card and then if there was an excess, i would splatter it onto another card.

the results are always random, messy and fun to do! just be careful not make a muddy mix of colors by waiting for one color to completely dry before layering another color.