Colored tissue, rubber cement, watercolors and letter stamps.

9/6/13-10/20/14

Here's an earlier sketchbook I filled from cover to cover.  I will be posting some pages from it.  I will call it the Big Old Sketchbook. : )

Big Old Sketchbook, pages 33 & 34

Rubber Cement Resist

 On page 33, I painted rubber cement to make the bar shapes.  Next, I dipped extra rubber cement and allowed drips to form long, rubbery strings from the brush to the paper and wiggled it around as the strings contacted the surface of the paper.  Once the cement dried, I placed a sheet of blue staining colored tissue paper onto the page. I dipped a brush in water and touched it to the tissue until the water soaked through and stuck it to the page.  I kept patiently adding water until the whole tissue sheet was wet.  I allowed this to dry.  (Whenever I am in a hurry, I use a hair dryer to speed the drying process.) Next, I rubbed off the rubber cement with an big eraser and all that had rubber cement was left to show the white of the page! There were blue streaks on the bars showing the big brushstrokes used to apply the rubber cement. Finally, I scribbled different colors using Derwent Inktense water soluble ink pencils then brushed over that with a wet brush.

On page 34, I painted a light watercolor wash on the entire page loosely with a size 10 watercolor brush, loosely, leaving specks of white here and there.  While that dried, I cut out a a square of card stock  (manila folder), cutting five rectangles out of it with a craft knife to use as a stencil.  I held down the stencil and repeatedly (12 times, as you can see) painted over it with rubber cement using a big flat brush.  Once that dried, I dropped a square of colored tissue over each, brushing them down patiently with a water loaded brush. Are you still with me? Once dry, I stamped each letter using those cheap rubber letter stamps with a black stamp pad.

Notice:   For colored tissue, you must give the tissue enough time to allow the color to bleed and transfer to the page. Warning! If your sketchbook pages are thin, place a couple of sheets of regular copy paper behind the sketchbook page.  I have seen tissue bleed through several pages. Of course, that would add interest to these pages so long as you are not a perfectionist.