Splodge & Blend - Set a new trend by Sam Crowe

By Sam Crowe

Materials Used

SplodgeAway Demonstrator Mat

SplodgeAway Heart Mask

SplodgeAway Poinsettia Mask

SplodgeAway Wolf Stenskape
Ranger Distress Inks :  Faded Jeans - Broken Chine - Chipped Sapphire
                               Worn Lipstick - Dusty Concord - Weathered Wood
Adirondack Inks : Mountain Rose - Current - Butterscotch
Gem, Ribbon and Crafts.Too Washi Tape - all bought from Suzicraft
Tag from - Paperartsy.co.uk
Xcut Doorplate Die
SAM Poole - Steam Punk Stamp Set

Method

This one could have potentially been quite difficult, except I had an idea I have been playing with for a while and decided I would put some real effort in to make it work as a piece I could hand in. My New Trend?  Double Masking through specific shapes and blending colours with the same method using a Stenskape. So "Double Masking" I suppose. This kind of coloured background isn't new in printing, but it is new (I think) for making your own background papers, cards etc in inks.

So this is how I did it:

Hearts - place the tag in the centre of your SplodgeAway mat and with some low tack tape attach the Heart Mask to the tag, you may have to keep moving the tape as you blend down the tag, Line up the Mask by the whole at the top of the tag to get  the hearts central.

If you are lucky enough to have treated yourself to a "Demonstrator" Mat it is ideal for this project.  Put your inks across the top of it, I laid out all the blues in order of light to dark, then my purple and then the contrasting reds, and of course the one colour I always include - butterscotch - The intention is to blend the colours AND shades down over - all Mats will be Ok just lay out fewer inks in one go if you have a smaller mat.

I wanted my shades to take a natural flow of colour i.e. blue goes to purple back to bluey red, etc, green looks good next to red, then yellow breaks everything up so you can start your colours again, but I went back to the yellow to red to purple look. My point is, if you don't think about the shades as they go down it could look very dull and you wouldn't see the shades of colour across the hearts very well, you need light to dark etc, this would also work in monochrome too though.  Make sure you have a dark at the top and bottom of the tag, everything looks better if top and bottom are balanced.

With the Stenskape find an edge that has some interest but is small enough to show within the heart.  The Wolf Stenskape is ideal for this. So your heart mask is taped down to the tag, this is the tricky bit, put your chosen edge over the hearts at the top and hold everything steady with one hand, with the other blend your ink onto the mat and bring it across to the tag, in the way that Tom does the Stenskapes, you want a good bit of ink, then move the mask edge down slightly and ink into it and up to the first dark edge, do not re-ink pad and use a lighter touch for shading. Do this two or three times over each row of hearts until you are happy with the results.  Don't forget the good thing with the SplodgeAway Stenskapes is they are easy to line back up.

The rest of the tag - this method looked good just as it was but I wanted a warmer look to it so I took off the masks and blended some blue ink into the tag from my Mat, I then did this with the butterscotch into the centre, not too dark though or you will cover the hearts too much.

At the bottom of the tag I just used the Stenskape edge moved down a few times using different colours.  I then put the gorgeous washi tape, that I bought from Suzicraft today, across the bottom for a finishing touch.

The flower was made using the SplodgeAway poinsettia Mask and the same method with the Stenskape.Lay the poinsettia mask over your card and the Stenskape edge on top and ink, then move it down and change colour. I also left a bit of white on some areas as part of the colour. Cut it out, shape and attach with foam pads and add a gem.

The tag was cut around the sentiment so that it was central,  again use low tack tape for this.  Once cut out I placed the heart mask over and did the same as on the tag but just with two contrasting colours, mine was the butterscotch and the Dusky Concord which looks brown over the butterscotch.  I lined up the tag and the mask,  taped it down and then moved the tag onto my Mat to do the blending. This way  when you put the tag back onto the main large tag the hearts line up perfectly.

The finishing touch was the gorgeous blue ribbon I purchased from Suzicraft. I have been eager to do a project with this method and I am very happy with the results.  I am off now to try it in black and white.

Hope you like it, please give it a go, my instructions sound complicated but once you get started you will understand them.

Bye for now

Sam