If there is a heaven on earth for mixed-media artists, it might be the Creativation 2018 show, an annual trade show for the craft industry that takes place over several days, hosted by the Association for Creative Industries. Manufacturers, designers, press, and buyers convened in Phoenix recently to see what’s new, track trends, take classes, and connect over a mutual love of art supplies, creativity, and art supplies. We were there, and would love to show you what’s on the horizon for your next inspired adventures.
Even if you’re not eagerly tracking The Next Big Thing, chances are you’ll see evidence of these trends in magazines and videos, on social media, and elsewhere. They’re an indication of where our collective creative brains are, and often parallel what’s going on in the worlds of fashion, food, and design.
• Marbling: Marbling lends a fun, sophisticated look to paper, fabric, and other surfaces, but some techniques are labor-intensive. Today, the look can be achieved effortlessly with a variety of products. Plaid Enterprises’ FolkArt Marbling Paint is water-based, nontoxic, and ready to go out of the bottle for beautiful striated effects.
Faber-Castell’s new Marbling Art for Beginners kit includes an array of materials: 12 colors of Soft Pastels, paper, tags, gold foil transfers, glitter, and a design guide. Marabu’s Easy Marble offers marble effects on paper, wood, plastic, glass, and much more, using an immersion technique. A demo at the show proved how simple this is, and the effects are incredible. We can’t wait to try these products for hand-decorated papers, canvas backgrounds, and more!
• Big paper flowers: The trend in enormous paper flowers that hit the wedding industry and is popular in fashion is finding an audience among paper artists. Kits, dies, and templates make producing these jumbo florals super easy, which means mixed-media artists can spend more time putting their own spin on things. The possibilities include flowers made out of hand-painted papers, book pages, and gelatin plate-printed papers. The Celebrations collection of die cuts by David Tutera for Sizzix includes a peony, dahlia, magnolia, daisy, and more; and a Framelits Large Rose die set looks like the real deal. Lia Griffith not only has great paper flower kits, but also a new coordinating tool line with Fiskars. Start with Echo Park Paper Co.’s sizeable Paper Petals die-cut flower kits and art them up to your heart’s content to create unique blooms.
• Even more paint choices: We mixed-media artists love our paint, don’t we? Well, make room in your workspace for more, like Plaid’s new FolkArt Watercolor Acrylic Paint, which can be thinned for beautiful washes, or used more concentrated out of the bottle. This paint is permanent when dry, and samples on fabric at the show felt incredibly soft, with none of the stiffness of regular acrylic paint.
Paint pours are all the rage on Instagram and YouTube; if you’re dying to try it, DecoArt has come up with Pouring Medium, an additive that thins paint to the right consistency for pouring, and it won’t crack or craze. There’s also a Clear Pouring Topcoat that provides a glossy, lacquer-like finish. DecoArt Media’s Fluid Acrylics pair well with the Pouring Medium, or can be used alone for any type of mixed-media painting.
In addition to Easy Marble, Marabu also featured their Art Sprays, an acrylic spray paint that comes in a non-aerosol pump bottle. The colors (as you can see, there are a ton) are intensely pigmented, and work on a variety of surfaces.
• Color, shine, and texture: Why go for boring when you can ramp up your artwork with eye-catching color, lots of shine, and interesting texture? Faber-Castell’s popular Gelatos now come in a new Translucents set that can be layered for incredible effects.
If glitter is your thing, you’ll revel in new paints that are packed with sparkle and metallic sheen. Try Testors Craft Color Shift Aerosols, which produce colors that change with light and angles; and Intense Glitter paint, brush-on color that offers a vivid glitter finish for various surfaces.
Making its debut at the Ranger Booth was Tim Holtz Distress Resist Spray, which offers a splattered resist effect when used with water-based color mediums like stains, inks, and crayons.
Seth Apter introduced a new line of Baked Textures embossing powders with Emerald Creek Craft Supplies that promise to rock your world. We caught one of his demos and watched as he used the powders over vintage paper, then mixed colors and embedded items in the melted powder.
Baked Textures can also be glued on, and come in colors like Patina Oxide, Rocky Road, and Ancient Amber. Vintage Beeswax can produce a number of aged effects.
• Still going strong: Some trends show no signs of slowing, such as planners, expandable travel journals, hand embroidery (on clothing and paper), and sophisticated die cut, embossing, and stamp designs that are perfect for art journaling and collage. Keep your eye on companies like Carabelle Studio, Visible Image, and PaperArtsy.
We met up with Jane Davenport in the Spellbinders Creative Arts booth, where she was proudly showing off the new signature Die Cutting & Embossing Machine, along with a slew of new products.
Jane introduced her new line of dies, stamps, inkpads, stencils, stickers, and more, all pure Jane. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the sample artwork was amazing!
Lettering continues to be popular, with companies like Ranger and Plaid introducing new products and programs.
The trip was a whirlwind, but we were thrilled to be able to see first hand what will be on your worktable soon. Keep watching the blog, our social media sites, and Cloth Paper Scissors magazine for more updates!
See how I experimented with new supplies from last year’s Creativation show in this blog post!
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