Tips and Tricks Monday - How to achieve exciting texture in your artwork

Hello and welcome!

Today is it the Tips & Tricks Monday again, yeeah!

A while ago I was asked how I achieved such a nice texture in the background:

And finally, the day has come where I will show you the cool technique 😊 But I have to say that I'm not the great inventor here, I learned this technique by amazing Rae Missigman on a course I took with her.

Here is the final result of my canvas:

Below is a step by step how this canvas became like that:

I started with a canvas and some heavy gesso

Then, when the gesso was dry I glued down some pattern- and gelli printing paper with soft matte gel

After all was dry I went over with a dry brush and white gesso

I added more paper

and more gesso

Now it was time to add some colour

and more gesso

Then some stenciling

More gesso....

What I'm trying on here is to achieve a lot of texture by building layer on layer.

And now pam pam paaaaaaaammmm!!!! Here comes the cool technique:

A newspaper!  You can also use, for example, a page from a phone book - then the technique becomes even cooler. Unfortunately, I do not have phone book so I have to cope with a newspaper page. 

I find somewhere in the newspaper where I think it is a little interesting font. Greases a little soft mat gel on my canvas and places the newspaper page with the front down. Then I use an old credit card and scratch over the newspaper page several times. Then I remove the page  (after a second or so) and VOILA!... I hope... You may have to do it several times to get the desired result.

Now I need some more texture

I stamped all the flowers and the butterflies on tissue paper. I used the water brush to tear them out. (That was a Tips and tricks from last monday). The stamps is from Rubber Dance. Du can find them here

I think I needed even more color and maybe a little black and white too

I decided I needed a little drips and drops

Now it's time to glue down the butterflies and the flower I decided to use on my canvas.

Here is another tip for you: Use acrylic flow release when you want the paint drain / drip. Then you keep all the pigments in the paint and you don't make it completely transparent. Mix some acrylic flow release and several parts of water in a spray bottle, and you always have it handy to make drips and drops.

I colored the butterflies with Dina Wakley's Scribble sticks and Distress Crayons. I used the black and white for shadowing.

Then I decided that I needed even more color

Now I think my canvas is finish. With a little more colours and some shadowing - Voila! 

On this canvas there is layer by layer by layer by layer..... And that is what it makes it so interesting, don't you think?

Thank you so much for visiting! I will be back on the 1th of November with some inspiration for the new Challenge over at the Rubber Dance. And next monday there will be a new tips & Tricks Monday. Stay tuned!

Hugs, Anita

❤