NOTE: Scroll down to see updates to this post.
I’m working on a new background technique. I’m loving it so far and want to share it. But I don’t want to share too much of it until it’s all done and the project I am making it for is complete. So instead I’ll give you a sneak peek at what I’m working on:
UPDATE: July 19th, 2008
For all of you who so easily figured it out, yes, it is bubble wrap. Now why did I doubt for even one instant that you would not be able to figure this out?
I am in a swap for a background technique fat book. I decided that I wanted to do something with this huge roll of bubble wrap that my husband dragged home for me the other day. And no, I did not want to use it for packaging. How boring would that be!
I am currently creating 76+ 4”x4” pages with bubble wrap as the background. That my friends is a lot of bubble wrap. This technique I have developed has quite a few steps along the way. Not too intensive if you are doing just a page or two but 76+ mini-pages is a lot of bubblewrap.
As I go along creating this I am going to post the steps here with photos. Today is step one. Ready?
Supplies:
Brayer, scrap paper or copy paper, translucent acrylic paint or acrylic paint thinned with either gel medium or glaze, rubber gloves, small bubble wrap (not the really big bubbles)
Step 1:
Mix your paint and place about a 1 - 2 inch puddle on your palette or in my case a piece of glass.
Lay your bubble wrap out bubble side down. We want to work on the ‘back’ of the bubble wrap for this step. Brayer on a thin coat of paint over your bubble wrap surface. It should look something like this:
Before the paint dries grab your blank paper and press it over the painted areas. This doesn’t need to be very thurough. Mainly we want to pick up a bit of the paint from the bubble areas. Because you are pressing this will cause the bubbles to pop up and so the paint will come off of those areas the most. Here’s a sample of the process and what your scrap paper should look like after:
Once you are complete and the paint has dried you will notice you have more paint on the areas in between the bubbles. This is what we want because when we do the next step we will be painting the other side of the wrap which means we will be painting the bubbles. So the color we have here will only show through slightly between the bubbles. Here is a picture of just a single layer (as these photos have many layers piled up) so you can see how translucent it really is when dry:
And just to give you an idea of the enormity of 76+ pages here is my step 1 completed on all of my layers:
I already have about 15 completed 4x4 pages. This is the rest of the bubble wrap needed. I will caution that you need more wrap than the area you are planning to cover. In a few more steps you will see why.
Thanks for reading and feedback is welcome.
Oh yea, and if you save it that scrap paper we made should make some fun backgrounds too!
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