Art Journal - #3 Black Magic Technique

This weeks technique as you see by the title is the "Black Magic" technique.  Now most people tell you that you have to use white ink paired with colored pencils.  WELL, I decided to see what worked and what didn't work to help open this technique up to everyone.

Black Magic Technique

Supplies:

White Ink or White Acrylic Paint

Color Medium (any of the following) - Colored Pencils; Distress Inks; Markers; Watercolor Crayons; Watercolor Pencils; Copics; Alcohol Inks

Bold Image Stamps

Black Cardstock

(optional) White Pigment Pen or White Gel Pen

Instructions:

1. Apply white (or a light colored) ink or acrylic paint to your bold image stamp. 

NOTE: Most of the time the instructions for this technique requires white ink but I tried this using white acrylic paint and other light colored pigment inks and they all worked well.  I actually found that I liked the image I stamped with white acrylic paint the best!

2. Stamp the image on black or dark colored cardstock and let dry.  I like to speed drying with my heat tool.

3. Traditionally the next step is to color your image with colored pencils to really make the image pop off the black background.  To change things up a bit and help you to use what is in your stash I tried a variety of color mediums.  All worked quite well on most of the backgrounds.  Those mediums that worked the best are: colored pencils (of course) or watercolor pencils; regular markers; Copic (or other alcohol ink type) Markers; water color crayons; Alcohol Inks (applied with Fillable Pen or other means); Distress Inks.

The following color combos are the same for each of the 3 images:

(the flower image is by Just For Fun Rubber Stamps)

Yellow - Watercolor Pencil

Blue - Colored Pencil

Light Pink - Watercolor Crayon

Light Green - Pastels

Dark Green - Alcohol Marker

Magenta (tiny flower buds) - Regular Marker

Purple - Distress Inks

Image stamped w/ Adirondack Snow Cap (White) Pigment Ink

Image stamped with Beige Brilliance Pigment Ink

Image stamped with White Acrylic Paint

(My Favorite)

And here the 3 examples in a side by side comparison.

Beige Brilliance Ink, White Pigment Ink; White Acrylic Paint

Which do you like best?

So there you go...

the "Black Magic" technique.

I think these variations offer a wide enough scope of materials that anyone can complete this technique without having to run out and buy a thing...I hope so at least!

and for the rest of the page.....

Since this is a journal we're also going to make 2 lists (one for each page) ~   The first list should be things you are good at - it could be baking, gardening, crafting, etc.  and for the second list you are going list things you'd like to learn how to do.

It doesn't matter how long either list is but really think about this.  Remember, our art journal is about Discovery....letting others discover things about you and you may just discover things about yourself along the way.

Now how do we combine the Technique with the Lists?  You can combine them however you like.  I think to simplify things I am going to position my list in the center of each page then work the Black Magic images around each list.  Totally up to you on how you incorporate them in your journal though. 

I will share my pages as soon as they are finished...

are you playing along?

are you keeping up?

am I going too fast?

are you having fun?

I am counting on you to let me know how you are doing and if you're enjoying the techniques/challenges for each set of pages.