Today is day ten of the Cloth Paper Scissors Holiday Sweepstakes! I hope you’ve been signing up to win some amazing prizes—the sweepstakes goes through November 23rd, and you can sign up on our sweepstakes page. Today, November 20th, the prize is an incredible bundle from Grafix, called Grafix Essentials, and includes Shrink Film, Computer Grafix printable transparencies, Artist-tac dot transfer adhesive, Rub-Onz transfer film, Stencil Film, Monoprint Plates, Clear Vellum, and more.
Having the right tools for the right job doesn’t just apply to fixing stuff around the house—it holds true for art as well. Grafix knows this, and that’s why they produce top-of-the-line products that artists love because they produce incredible results. Today I’m going to show you a collage I made using the Monoprint Plates and the Artist-tac dot transfer adhesive.
The Monoprint Plates are incredible versatile—you can use a variety of mediums and techniques, and they encourage you to play and experiment, which is always a good thing.
I used water-based markers to first create a background, smearing a brown marker onto the plate in a random fashion. I then spritzed it with water to get it really wet:
A piece of vintage ledger paper was laid on top and pressed down, and this was the result—a gorgeous watercolor-looking background:
When it was dry, I stamped over it with navy permanent ink:
I wanted to embellish the collage with flowers, and to contrast with the formal background image I wanted to make them fun and funky. I drew a flower onto the plate with markers, then went over the image with a damp waterbrush:
I pressed a small piece of 140-pound cold-press watercolor paper on top, and got this print:
After going over the flower with a water brush, this happened:
I love the result, and it’s nothing I could have gotten from straight marker, or just watercolor. Depending on the type of medium and paper you use, you’ll always get a new effect.
I made a few more flowers and leaves, cut them out, added a little bit of white paint pen, and then adhered them with Artist-tac. If you’ve never used a dry adhesive, there are so many advantages that artists will love: it won’t buckle the paper, you can apply it exactly where you want it, and it’s repositionable until you burnish it. This was probably the greatest asset for this project, because I kept adjusting the position of the flowers. I wouldn’t have that advantage with regular glue.
There’s so much more you can discover with these Grafix products, which will take your artwork to new, exciting places. Be sure to sign up today for your chance to win this fantastic prize package!