I'm sure this will be one of many Painty Paper blogs. If there were one thing that truly speaks to my soul, its using scrap, junk, crap paper and turning them into works of art with simple everyday items and some cheap (and I mean CHEAP) paints. Its the most inexpensive way to create something beautiful and wonderful with color, texture, and style. Not to mention, colored and patterned paper that is commercially made costs a fortune and I'm sure the production of it is bad for the environment and repurposing papers and household items instead of throwing them away gives you a GREEN advantage to this whole art business.
I'm sure that someday in the future, I will get into details about all of the things that I use in my mixed media painty papers but for now, let's go through a rundown of what these are and what you can use them for.
**And even if you are a "painty paper" veteran and think you can skip all of this, please don't! I can't tell you the amount of videos I've watched and things I've read about - topics I thought I knew about (Painty papers being one of those topics), but come to find out, I was far from an expert! Inspiration and new ideas come from all over, so keep reading before you close out!**
I apologize for so many blue pages - when I grabbed a stack of base coat pages, the majority of them were blue (and maybe I was in a bit of a blue mood anyway). But this brings us back to colored paper. I create my own blue, green, red, orange, yellow, grey, etc. pages and stock pile them. Then, I make holiday pages (Christmas, Falloween, Spring, etc.) and I stock pile them. They work amazing in just about all of the journals, ephemera, ATCs, happy mail I've ever used them for!
So, what is my process?
Let me start by saying its different for everyone - but I will tell you what works for me.
I work in steps.
Step 1 - the base coat. It is where I scrape, brush, gel print, sponge paint on the paper. These go very fast. Unless I'm painting specific shapes (i.e. squares/rectangles were a big one at one point in my base coats - pictured below)
And these ones here with this gorgeous stencil are among my favorites, so I hoard these ones (and turned them into digis instead).
Below I used some mesh as a stencil.
Step 2 - is really artists choice. Sometimes, I stencil, other times I stamp and alternate between the two depending on the paper and base coat.
Once in a blue moon, there is nothing after the base coat. Sometimes, they come out so perfectly that nothing else needs to be done. This type of painty paper is called "the unicorns" (just kidding- but they seriously are like unicorns).
Step 3 - same as step 2...using the alternating tool - stamp or stencil.
Step 4 - doodle, mark making, pastels, crayons, paint pens, pencils, markers... Whatever you can think of... Mark up however you see fit!
What are some things to do with painty papers?
Painty papers are such a versatile tool to have in your arsenal. After a few uses of these babies in your projects, more and more ideas start flooding in until you are a crazy painty person like me who uses these in place of fancy colored scrapbook papers and such.
They work in place of any papers.
-Backgrounds are especially awesome. It really helps focal images POP when used in collages or on ATCs, mixed media, scrapbook layouts, art journaling, etc.
-Journal pages. I often use book page FOLIOS ( when each pair of pages is pulled from the center of the signature(s) in each book). Then I have a double-wide set of pages which work best for sewing signatures of a junk journal. I'm a real weirdo about proper orientation of the pages in my journals (random upside down oooopsies not included).
-Die Cutting/shape cutting. I always die cut my painty papers and they come out amazing. Sometimes, even the ugliest painty papers looks amazing in smaller chunks. So, don't throw out your ugly painty papers (and if you are hoarding them rather than trash them, trust me, try smaller pieces of the ugly page). Shape cutting is the same as die cutting except you are cutting by hand/punch.
-Greeting Cards. Either torn up and glued onto the card or covering the entire thing, painty papers give greeting cards a real unique, authentic flair. I like to tear corners off and only cover half of my card diagonally. Or, leave a thin border of the original card and cover the rest of the card with painty paper (I know there's a word for this, but it eludes me at the moment).
-Big Projects. Book marks. Journal covers, focal point of a mixed media piece. You know the projects I'm talking about - the ones that make the pages SHINE. For instance, my favorite pages up there - I have made a few of those into digital images and I print them and use them as covers on some things.
**Don't fear the uglier pages...when you cut them into smaller pieces (think ATC, inchies, etc.) they will look much better...Trust me!
I'm sorry for the novel but I'm passionate about everything Painty Papers are and everything you can use them for! I even started selling mine in my colorful collage packs (available in my ko-fi store). So, grab some cheap paints, stencils, stamps, markers and pastels and start turning your junk mail into art!
~M
