Mr Cardmaker Earns His Stripes

I just love CASE-ing talented people. CASE (copy and share everything) is a wonderful way to come up with a starting point for a project, and gives you the most marvelous ways to stretch your creative muscles.

Jennifer McGuire has been a fantastic resource for all things card making, whether it's a new technique, new product, or new way to look at something you're already doing. She is also a major organizational champ, and a Sweetie, too, so DEFINITELY check her out, if you don't already do so on a regular basis.


She did a terrific tutorial about doing masked stripes, which I really enjoyed, and I knew I had to dive into this one for myself.

To start with, I made this--

This technique is done with ink and ink blenders, with the help of some low-tack tape. Layer of ink create different depth of color, and when you stay in somewhat of a rainbow order, you can safely move from color to color without being in danger of creating muddy messes. I used Distress Inks, which are terrific for blending like this.  I didn't actually stay in rainbow order here, but I liked these colors, and they all have so much yellow in them, I think it worked out just fine.

My favorite part is going back over areas with stripes of white pigment ink, which makes some pretty amazing highlights.

I tried to keep the rest of this card to a minimum, so the background could really shine. 

I also did a second panel, but I had some trouble getting the tape to adhere to the wet ink where I was trying to do layering, so I had some boo boos I had to cut off.

I ended up with these--

These are tiny 3" cards, which would be great for gift enclosures or tags. I quickly colored up some Hero Arts critters and flowers, and managed to salvage what I could of the panel.
Note that I DID manage to achieve rainbow order here!

This was so fun to do, and other than my challenge of getting the tape to cooperate, these were pretty idiot proof (ME, being the idiot in question). Oh the key is to use enough tape that you can tape to your surface, as well as your paper panel. Once I grasped that one, it was smooth sailing!

So, thanks to Jennifer for the idea. I'll be returning to this technique, I think!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best--
Richard

#jennifermcguire #heroarts #distressink