 Hey, I'm Hannah from Art Reson and I'm here today with Jessica Maga, who's an alcohol ink artist and she's here today to show us some technique So thanks so much for coming out here today. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So what are you gonna be teaching us this morning? Today we're gonna work on two different projects. The first one is more of a flowy abstract inspired piece where there's a lot of fades and we're just gonna sort of use our intuition to make the piece and the second piece we'll work together on it's a collage inspired piece and we're gonna use a lot of fun textures and bright colors and Make a really cool looking collage. Okay. Awesome. Let's get started then All right So the first project that we're gonna be working on today is an abstract alcohol ink piece where we're gonna use our intuition to sort of Create a blended flowy piece So the materials that we're gonna use today are of course our alcohol inks I've got some needle dropper bottles here One has blending solution. The other has some 99% isopropyl alcohol And I've also got some needle dropper bottles with some custom colors that I've created using the core alcohol ink colors and I've got some cotton pads here I'll use those to soak up extra alcohol ink or isopropyl alcohol and I have a palette here if I need to wash a brush or if I want to blend out some colors and here We've got some YUPO paper we use YUPO paper because it is a non-absorbent Substance it's not like regular paper. So basically the alcohol ink will just sit on top of this paper It won't sink into the paper and that's what we need to Help this project be successful and I've also got this handblower tool I'm gonna use this to help push around the alcohol ink and the isopropyl alcohol and get some of those really nice blends and We've got this wooden canvas here that we'll mount our completed project on to and That's just about it. I think we're ready to get started I'm just gonna grab my YUPO paper here and get a sheet ready to go and then I'm gonna start by choosing my first color And we're gonna drop it onto the page. I like to work Really small so that we can keep as much control as possible And I'm just going to dot it down onto the page and then we're gonna add on some 99% isopropyl and what the isopropyl does is it pushes the ink So I just dotting around to try and control that and I'm gonna add in another color Here We're gonna add the isopropyl back on as well And those are gonna start to blend together And as I add more the ink gets more and more diluted and then I'm gonna use my blow tool to sort of blend those out Just slightly Then we need to be patient and we need to just sort of let this do its own thing and dry a bit And if you feel like you're getting too much ink pooling you can use a cotton pad and just pick up a little bit of That ink and then just keep going with colors. So this is the 99% alcohol What it does is it helps push the inks it dilutes them and it makes them sort of fluid Helps them blend with other colors So what I use the Alcohol for is to help sort of guide the colors. I don't want them flying out all over the page That's why I try to stay sort of controlled and in a small area. You don't want to use too much isopropyl alcohol at once Because if you get too much on your page you just sort of have everything sliding around all over the place So it's important to Kind of give the art a chance to just develop on its own You're gonna see you might get some start getting some jagged lines, but we'll fix those after You can always use your your alcohol to blend those out and make them a bit softer and With these type of pieces. We're just trying to make everything as soft as possible and As the alcohol ink spreads you can use your blow tool to sort of stop it from spreading too far I'm just doing really really small little controlled Controlled movement there just to get it to stop spreading so far Basically what we're gonna do is we're just gonna work up the entire page I'm sticking with a color palette. That's fairly simple all colors that work well together If you're choosing a color like a Blue and an orange you're gonna potentially get some really muddy looking bits This here I just grabbed my blending solution. So blending solution is a little bit different From 99% isopropyl alcohol. It's a bit stickier So what it actually does is it sort of picks up the color and moves all of the color Versus the isopropyl alcohol when you drop that down it actually pushes the color and dilutes it quite a bit So there is there's a slight difference between the two And as you work with alcohol inks more and more you'll you'll start to notice those differences So again, I'm only using the tiniest amounts of alcohol Ink and isopropyl alcohol. They don't want things to to get out of control And while your ink is still wet while one color still wet you can add another and get them to blend together really nicely And as you add the dots start to push out Grab some of that extra ink there So any of these jagged lines that you're seeing after after we finish the whole piece We're gonna we're gonna blend those out There's not any rules about How how you make these pieces? I? Largely go based on my intuition I try to choose colors that all work well together side by side so that when they blend together We're not getting any weird colors, and I try to as I work up the page I try to just balance out each of the colors So I've got kind of I work almost in sections of three where I'll use my main purple blue and this sort of greeny color that I've made And then we'll just we'll work on a composition and once we're happy with that composition We can sort of put the finishing touches on by blending everything out and making it look really really nice and flowy so the more The more 99% alcohol that you add onto the page the more it's going to dilute your inks So if you want to create kind of a fade what you can do is you can dot just plain alcohol out onto the page and Have it connect up with your with your color, and then you can use your blow tool and sort of push that Very gently outward, and I will sometimes even just use my finger to help spread that out a bit Make sure it's nice and faded you can also use a cotton pad a clean one Sort of soften up any of the edges wipe up Get that and help it dry So usually what I'll do is I will choose Three to four main colors that work together really well and don't create any sort of muddiness when they meet That's how you can get the blends on your page And then what I what I like to do is choose a brighter Accent color that's more like a It's got more contrast to it and I'll use that sort of toward the end to add in some little accents and get A little bit more visual interest on the piece As I work I just sort of look for areas that are heavy with ink and I'll dilute those out by adding the 99% Isopropyl onto them You'll see when it Hits the page it sort of spreads all that ink out And if the ink that you have beside A color that you drop down is still wet. They'll start to blend together if it's not blend if it's not wet Um, it won't blend as much. It will more so just kind of push and make some of those more jagged jagged lines So this one i'm fading out quite a bit of isopropyl use a cotton pad to soak up some of that excess alcohol so the reason that I like to use a blow tool versus um Something like a blow dryer is that the blow tool doesn't dry the ink as fast and that's um That's actually how you achieve sort of more of the blended look If you don't dry your inks as fast they they have more time to sort of settle into the page and blend out A little bit more nicely so you can get that flowy effect. So when I work on the pieces I I'm just looking for balance. I'm I sort of I You have to surrender to the inks a little bit Um And just you know sometimes they they won't do exactly what you want But that's kind of part of the beauty of it. So you just you follow the ink and you can use your your tool to Kind of guide that but I mean part of part of this whole process is that you're you're giving up a bit of control When you're using alcohol inks and that's that's part of the reason that I like them so much Another part about alcohol inks is that they do dry quickly so In some senses you have to make quick decisions and they might not always feel Like the right decision at the time but Generally if you keep going with a piece you you can get it to a place that you'll you'll be happy with in the end um some of the pieces that I've made where I thought that they weren't going to turn out if I just stick with them and I keep Keep blending and keep trying my Techniques that I have um, it'll it'll help them turn out So now I'm just looking at the composition. I mean we've got just kind of one single Line up the center here usually with my pieces. I like to Start with this kind of main center Area, and then I will I'll branch off from there. So I think I'm going to come up here It's a little bit of ink and possibly down this way with a little bit more and then We'll see how that looks in terms of a composition And the way that I choose my colors here is I just try to keep things balanced um, so If you're working with three different colors like I'm working with now You just want to look for a good balance of the the green the blue and the purple unless you want a piece to be Really heavy with one color this blow tool here to try and prevent getting a a jagged line I'm just concentrating it right here to try and Try that small area and then the rest over in this area. I'm going to just let this Let the ink and the Isopropyl alcohol do its thing and kind of dry on its own I mean some jagged lines in the piece are okay, but usually that's the alcohol inks really Deluded in those area or sorry the alcohol inks really Concentrated in those areas and I find sometimes it's it's a bit distracting visually. So I mean personally for my pieces I I like them to look a little bit wispy and kind of ethereal or like You know something that you might see in a dream But I mean jagged lines are totally okay if you like that look then it's totally okay to have some jagged lines Like right here in this section. I actually I like how this looks because it's got sort of an interesting interesting look and That's the other thing with these pieces is is there's certain parts that that you might You might like more composition wise That's why I like to work on A piece of paper that's actually bigger than my canvas so that when it comes time to Mount this to a canvas I can choose the composition that that makes the most sense and that looks the best So I'm just noticing I've got quite a bit of green here, and I'm trying to figure out what color I want to use to sort of balance that out once again Try not to put too much on the page especially when you're Adding it into areas that already have ink because you'll notice that things will spread really quickly You don't need to use much at all like your alcohol inks will last you forever if you work like this And just try to stay controlled and use small amounts versus saturating the entire page So I just dot the isopropyl alcohol onto the page when I want to blend something out The more you add the more it will blend So I think I'm going to come down this way a bit I'm maybe down this way as well And then when your ink is still wet you can add in more color to get those Blends between the two so I just use the 99 percent to try and push the two together and then I'll use my blow tool to Blend them out a little bit more And that's where you'll start to get those colors mixing And creating new and different colors And that's the other great thing about alcohol inks is that they They aren't Permanent really they'll stain the page a bit, but if you don't like a certain area You can you can always correct it by adding a bit of your isopropyl alcohol onto your cotton pad or onto A rag or anything like that and you can just rub at a line to sort of Soften it or get rid of it And one of the reasons that I like to use these little Needle dropper bottles is that they give me quite a bit of control in terms of how much ink comes out or how much alcohol And it's actually nice to kind of have that constant flow of isopropyl alcohol just at your hand versus Constantly going back and forth from a from a bottle that we're using a pipette It gives you ability to react a bit quicker So depending on where you put the isopropyl alcohol in the ink It kind of dictates what the ink is going to do So if you drop it straight into the center of Some concentrated concentrated ink, then it's going to push that ink away if you drop it on the edge It's going to sort of blend it out And dilute it a little bit So that's kind of How I make the decision of where I'm going to place the isopropyl alcohol on this side here I want to blend this out So I'm placing it closer to the edge and then I'm using my blow tool to push the color When I'm mixing Multiple ink colors at once I'll add my isopropyl into the center of the first color and then I'll just sort of drop The ink colors that I'm using along with it off to the side Not straight into the ink that you've already mixed I want to try and keep them separate at first so that they don't Blend together too much I want the isopropyl alcohol to help us Do the blending This is looking a little dark. So I'm just going to Use cotton pad to soak some of that up So along the edges is usually where I Sort of fan things out and blend them Concentrated ink right here. So I'm just dropping some alcohol to Soften that up a bit So you made a mistake You can just use a cotton pad with a little bit of 99% alcohol on it To help blend out That mistake So I'm just looking right now to figure out where I want to go next with this sometimes what I find helps is If you're working on on a composition and You're unsure of what to do next you can just flip your page and Sometimes that can help you decide where you want to go from there I think I might Do a bit more Over this way Once you're happy with your composition what I like to do What I like to do next is Go in and start adding some of the finer details. So I'm going to use a Some blending solution and my 99 percent 99 percent isopropyl alcohol And I am going to just sort of place tiny little dots throughout wherever Places are super concentrated or if there's spots that I want to fade out and blend I'm just going to add in isopropyl and that's going to give it some of that visual interest And again, you don't want to get too far ahead of yourself and put too much alcohol down on the page at once So just focus on small areas at a time While I'm doing this I also like to use a cotton pad To pick up some of the ink and help really fade it out And I'll use my blower tool to sort of help Keep this alcohol in one area. I just kind of go around the circle as it dries with little tiny Tiny gusts of wind so that it stops it from spreading too far because if you Put too much on the page at once it will just spread forever and really what I'm looking for is areas that are really concentrated with alcohol I'm just looking to sort of blend those out So this one that I'm using here is the blending solution and it works slightly different than the alcohol It's a bit stickier so it kind of Picks up the ink and blends colors A bit more And if you use the blower tool right in the middle, you can sort of push some of those inks around I like to add dots of alcohol In areas where certain colors are intersecting Because then you'll get kind of a really nice faded blended look Between the different colors that you're using In this area right here, it's sort of um, there's not much texture. It's it's just sort of a flat light color I'm going to dot my isopropyl onto there and It's going to pick up the ink and start making sort of like a A bubbly texture That's how I like to do the fades at the edges Get some of those wispy kind of looks Use a cotton pad to get rid of any harsh lines So basically what I do when I'm adding in these details is I I sort of look for areas that I'm not 100 happy with and those are the areas that I'll choose to sort of change with the alcohol by Blending the ink a little more and there will be certain parts in your composition that you will Really really like so I try to stay away from the parts that I really like So I don't accidentally change anything Honestly, it's it's a lot of A lot of failures But every single time that you create a piece that you're not 100 happy with you you learn something from that piece So it is it is a lot of practice To kind of know what to do next It's not hard to learn you just have to stick with it So the next thing that I have is This blue color here, but I've I've diluted it with a lot of 99% isopropyl alcohol. So basically what I do is add a small small drop of blue into my container and then Use some 99% isopropyl And we'll add that into the bottle and we're just trying to make a really really Light color that's not concentrated and I'm gonna use this For some of the details as well. So when you put it onto the page, you'll notice that it's hardly got any color to it That's good for creating some of those faded Faded pieces on your art. You just use a really diluted color All right, so once you're happy with that um What you can do is you can go in with your 99% isopropyl alcohol again And I like to just sort of dot it around and make some visual interest with really really tiny dots um, so I just So if you find that Your alcohol is flowing too fast in the needle dropper If you fill it back up There will be less air in there and it will Slow it down a little bit Really what I'm doing is I'm just using the 99% isopropyl alcohol to sort of create Different visual interest and different textures throughout the piece When you dot it on the page like that the way that the alcohol inks flow You'll you'll get these sort of almost worm-like patterns And you just want to do your dots fairly close together It'll spread a little bit and the last thing that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do a little bit of a wash of color On the page, so I'm just adding my diluted blue color onto a cotton pad You can use cotton pads or reg or paper towel to Make a bit of a color wash and then you'll notice that when you wipe it onto the paper. It's really subtle, but There is just the slightest bit of color there So I like to do that just to break up some of this dark white on the page. It makes it look a little bit more Organic some more isopropyl just in those spots to get To push that really really light color away and you'll get a little bit more Of the that sort of veining look that really light Any areas that are too harsh you can use your cotton pads to sort of blend them out. All right, so I think for me, this is this is the final composition Um, what I've got here is my accent color. This is the Yellow and it's just mixed with the slightest slightest amount of black just to sort of dull it down Tiny tiny bit so it goes a bit better with our color palette So what I'm going to do with this I'm going to use this yellow color as my accent And I've got a very small brush So either you can Dot the yellow color on Or sometimes what I like to do is load the brush not too too much what I'd like to just Tap it off of my finger and you're going to start to get these very small dots of yellow And we're just kind of doing that where you want to make sure you don't have Too much or you'll get some really intense splatters unless that's the look that you're going for So just lightly tapping and then I'm going to load the brush and I'm going to choose a few areas to do a bit bigger And we'll blend those out with isopropyl So I like to choose an accent color for these pieces just because I think it Is it a bit more visual interest it gives it this kind of pop of color? um I mean these the blue the green and the purple all work really well together And then I think the yellow just kind of gives it a little bit more visual interest and it's a bit of an unexpected pop Feels like it works I'm going to use my 99 isopropyl in a few of these and I'm going to just Drop it with a straight in the center and that will this is slightly I'm going to fade out because these colors are Pretty diluted so you only need a tiny tiny bit All right, so I think I'm happy with that and once you're happy with your composition What you're going to do is you're going to seal your alcohol ink piece with Krylon Kamar varnish We're going to let it dry and then we're going to add on a really special 3d gold detailing So I like to wear a mask when I'm using any sort of spray paint especially this varnish So what I'm going to do is I'm going to spray this onto my art piece in a light sweeping motion And you just want to cover the entire piece So that's it and we'll just wait for this to dry and then we will apply our 3d gold accent All right, so now that our varnish is completely dry We're going to apply something called a relief paste to make our wonderful gold accent So you just want to do a thin line. It's going to come out That's a sort of raised line And I'm just doing organic shapes So I'm using a relief paste to make these raised Lines You just want to work slowly try not to squeeze too much out onto the page all at once So I'm choosing to add This 3d element to my piece for a little bit more visual interest, but you don't have to if you're happy with your piece as is You don't have to add the 3d paste You don't want to overwhelm Your piece with the accents So less is more in this case All right, so now that we're done that step I'm going to apply gold leaf to give it that gold color But before we do that we have to allow this 3d paste to get tacky So it will dry clear and that's when you'll know that it's tacky enough to apply the gold leaf All right, so now that we've let this dry and it's nice and clear and tacky We're going to apply our gold leaf Gold leaf is a little bit finicky. It will fly all over the place. So be prepared um, all I'm going to do is pick up the sheets and Place them down onto that tacky glue and just lightly press and you'll see We're already getting that 3d effect there The gold leaf's adhering really nicely I'm just going to do every single place that we've got the relief paste And then you can use a soft brush to lift up some of the excess So once this relief paste is tacky enough you'll find that the gold leaf will just stick to it without any effort If your relief paste isn't dry enough You'll have some issues where the relief paste might squish underneath what you're doing And if it's dried for too long your gold leaf won't stick properly. So we're in a sweet spot right here So it's typically 1 to 2 hours for this relief paste to dry properly Um, it also depends on how thick of lines you're doing So there's a few factors, but a good way to tell whether it's dry or not is if the paste is transparent and it has no more white showing and It's nice and tacky So you'll be able to tell as soon as you stick gold leaf All right, so I think We've covered all the areas Now we can just use a soft microfiber cloth to wipe away this excess It's gonna go everywhere So i'm just gonna use a soft brush to Almost sweep away any extra that's left This stuff is really Sticky and we'll cling to everything Okay, so the next step for this project is that we're going to find a composition that we like the most within this 11 by 14 sheet um, so what we've done here is We've got a little window that we're going to use to help find a composition that we like And that window matches the size of our canvas So what you can do is just use this window to help you visualize a composition that you like you can Move it around And find something that you like best So I think But I like the composition That's got gold in the corners and this sort of yellow burst right here right almost in the center So i'm just going to use a pencil To mark my corner points I'll take that window off and And we can line up our canvas With those marks And then we can get to Cutting out the composition So again, I'm going to cut this slightly wider than our actual canvas All right, so now that we've found our composition and we've cut it out to match our canvas size We're going to adhere this to our board So i'm just applying the gel medium to the board And you want a nice even layer and you want to make sure that you get it right to the edges I usually like to start on the outside and work my way into the center All right, so i'm just going to apply our piece of upo paper onto this wood board So that feels like it's on there pretty good It's up here All right So the next step is to Trim this down with an exacto knife so that it matches up with our canvas perfectly Okay, so i'm ready to do our collage piece now. So where do we start? So i've got four different techniques that we're going to try today The first one we're going to use a palette knife and we're going to push the ink around the page The second one we'll use a brush to create some texture We're going to use a technique where we use a sponge brush And we're going to apply the ink onto the sponge and brush it to make a nice gradient And the final technique is a saran wrap Effect where we put the saran wrap onto the page and it creates kind of like a mosaic texture Okay, sounds like fun. Let's do it. All right. So I think the first one we'll start with is the palette knife technique So for the palette technique, we're going to use our palette knife to push this ink around the page Today, I think i'm going to use pink yellow and maybe some blue Um, so the first step is just to apply some ink onto your paper Um a generous amount and then you're just going to use your palette brush and just push it And then you can drag some excess down push it around. So this is just meant to be texture Four collage, so it might look a little crazy as a whole entire art piece, but Once the texture is made and we're cutting it into smaller shapes. It will it will look Um a little bit better I'm adding the yellow next because the yellow is complementary to the pink. So if we get Some blending it's just going to turn to orange. It's not going to turn muddy We're going to save the blue as our last step so that we don't Get muddy. So we usually try to stick with two complementary colors and then the final one can be A contrasting color. I'm happy with that one. I love it. Do you want to give it a try now? Yeah, I'd love to So just um start by putting a good amount of ink on your page Do you recommend always finishing with one color before you add next? Yeah, usually I like to start with a base of one color and then If I if I think it needs a little bit more, I've all had it as I go But so if you do like a quicker like more forceful push Okay I'm all too yellow here So I think now you can probably add in your green We'll go with the purple now as your accent. So with the accent color you want to Try and keep it a little bit more minimal at the start just because you can you can get some muddiness if you add too much But um, so when you drop it on the page, you just do a quick sort of scrape And then sorry the spot right here where you've got some bleeding That's all right So also another thing to keep in mind while you're making these textures is that we're only using small little snippets of each so You know overall sometimes you might feel like a piece is really busy or it doesn't make sense But once we start kind of zeroing in on these smaller areas They they sometimes become a little bit more like visually pleasing. Yeah So I don't love it partly because of my color choice, but I know we are cutting it out So do you have any suggestions how I could fix it in the end? So I think that's part of the beauty of this type of project is that We're we're working in a really small area So I mean, maybe you don't love the colors you've chosen or you're not happy with the composition overall But when you look in closer here, you'll see that you've actually got some really nice areas That would be great for a texture for a cloche. Cool makes sense. So what's next? So we're going to seal this piece and we can move on to our next technique. All right Okay, so technique number two is a paintbrush technique where we're going to use alcohol ink and brush it along our paper And we're going to use some 99% isopropyl alcohol to blend it and create some texture I guess I'm going to just start by grabbing our palette here And I'm going to choose my colors. I think we'll go with a Blue again, so I'm just dripping them into our palette here Sometimes makes it a bit easier to grab them on the brush Maybe a bit of yellow How many colors do you recommend for this technique? I usually try not to complicate things too much. I try to stick with Um, you know about three colors maximum So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to dilute these With just a tiny bit of alcohol. They'll just that'll make it easier for us to spread them around grab my brush And all we're going to do is just paint in lines on the upo and add some alcohol to kind of create texture And you'll see that it spreads up the page Again, we're not going to worry too much about the composition or how things look Just because we're only going to be using small snippets. So I'm going to fill this last one here with a bit of Alcohol so that I can clean my brush a bit before I move on to the yellow It's going to go a bit green because I've still got some blue Brush that on a bit of alcohol here So usually just work in lines straight down the page And it's all right if your colors are mixing a bit. That's actually what adds a bit of visual interest there So I'm not using the pink quite yet. I'm going to just use that as maybe a bit of an accent at the end And for this style, you can be a bit more liberal with your isopropyl alcohol because we Are just aiming to cover our page with a texture I'm just going to clean my brush Just going to add some very small little dashes of pink throughout And every time you add that isopropyl onto the page it reactivates the inks We'll start to move around and blend again. For here. I'm just going to use Isopropyl to kind of create a dot texture Maybe a little more here So I'm pretty happy with how that's looking so far. Do you do you want to give it a go? Yeah, it looks so cool, especially with the pink. It really does make the rest of the colors pop So do you recommend using colors similar to the one that you just did with the palette knife? So that when you cut them all up to collage together that they go well together or do you choose new colors sometimes? Um, yeah, I think if you're if you're thinking in terms of uh an overall collage you you want things that are Complementary to each other. So I would recommend Staying in that same sort of color range. Okay, so I think I'm going to go with Purple green and blue because they kind of go with the color scheme that I just did on the last one So how much do I add here? Oh, you can just add a few drops. Yeah, that's probably good. All right Yep, and you just dilute it slightly with your alcohol Do you think that's enough? Oh, I would add just a little bit more to that just keep going I would probably do the whole dropper actually. All right. Yeah Cool Do I have to mix it up right away? No, you can let it sit so that Wider flatter brush will give you more of a wash this angled brush It can give you a little bit more precision lines. So okay can start with that one and then switch it up So when you add in that isopropyl alcohol, that's what delutes the ink to to kind of make it a little bit more subtle and if you wanted it to be More intense than you just add more ink. Okay And if I wanted it to blend more, can I go without washing my brush and just mix into the next color? Yeah, yeah, of course, okay I still might wash it out Yeah, honestly, it's just um It's all about experimenting some things you'll Try something and find out a great new technique just by you know, not necessarily following the rules The isopropyl so I would I would add in lines just to sort of you know, create different Create different texture throughout so when you add in that line, it will kind of push your ink upward You'll notice and then you'll get some more kind of pigmented lines throughout You can also use your brush to sort of push that around if you wanted And if you want anything to be more pigmented You can even add ink directly to your page if you wanted like a really intensely pigmented spot Oh, okay Or we do it similarly to how we did the palette knife when you put a little drop and just brush it across Yeah, I would I would say just do a small drop and maybe use a smaller brush to start and then you can just sort of Brush it across the page. There's so many different things you can do Like see the outcome when I like lodge even though I know I can't see that I know there's not really a point now if you can go No, but I kind of like it No, come do some vertical lines. Can I add vertical lines? You can do whatever you want. It's your texture All right, I'm gonna try to kind of break it up a little bit. Maybe make a little flat effect I'm gonna try your little polka dot technique See what happens Oh, I kind of like it. Yeah, it looks really good Thank you. Okay, I'm happy with that. So what's next? So the next technique that we're gonna try is the sponge brush technique. We're gonna make a little bit of a gradient Okay, so for this technique, we're gonna use a sponge brush to create a gradient on our page Um, I'm gonna only use two colors this time, but you can use as many or as little color as you want Uh, I'm going to start by just applying the alcohol ink directly to the sponge brush You want to kind of saturate it quite a bit So I did about three lines where I'm squeezing that bottle and then I'm going to bring the yellow over as well and I'm going to Saturate that on that side and so I'm choosing colors that blend together well in the center Because again, we want to avoid any brown colors or muddiness And then I'm just going to take the smallest amount of isopropyl alcohol and drop it in there just to help the inks Move a bit more when we put it on the page I'm just going to set it directly down on the page and brush it across And you can just keep going with it or you can do a design if you want And we've got a bit of ink here at this side, so I'm just going to lift my sheet to help it from pooling All right, and then we just let it dry like that and that's the gradient technique. It's so simple but so pretty All right Think I might do blue and green this time And then you said I add some isopropyl on top of it. Yeah, just add a little bit just to help things flow Think that's good. Yeah, that probably probably is good I'm gonna just swipe it across Yeah, with a little bit of pressure on your page and just glide it across or you can you can do a design You can do anything. It's totally up to you. I do it this way Let's see what happens And if you feel like you want to dilute the ink a little bit more You can add a bit more isopropyl or you can keep it really pigmented Might try a little bit more And you can just yeah swipe over Or you can leave those lines sometimes that those lines would be nice the texture All right Super simple. Do you think that's good enough to yeah, I think that's great. I think it will be great. Yeah. Okay, cool So what's next? Um, so the final technique that we are going to do is something similar to this where we're going to swipe some ink onto a page And then we're going to add saran wrap over top and the saran wrap is going to leave it with a really cool mosaic effect That sounds so cool Okay, so let's move on to the saran wrap technique for this one, I'm going to choose yellow and blue And I'm going to just apply them sort of in lines On to my page And this one you're going to want the page to be a little bit more wet so that the saran wrap has Something to cling to I'm going to add Actually, I am going to just spread these out I'll add a little bit of alcohol onto my alcohol onto my sponge brush here, and I'm using a clean one For this yellow here so that I can keep some of that yellow color without blending too much So for this one you want your inks to be fairly saturated and your page to be slightly wet Um and that way the saran wrap will cling to it, but you don't want your page Drenched because if it's drenched then it will never dry it will take a very long time And then all I'm going to do after that is just lay this down. You'll see it starts to cling and you can kind of position it And crinkle it up Just slightly you don't want it too crinkled, but you'll see how it starts clinging It's creating a bit of a mosaic effect underneath of there. You can lift it up and reposition A little bit that's needed Make sure everything's in contact and That is the saran wrap technique. That's so cool. You can already kind of see how it's going to turn it later through the saran wrap I'm excited to see it fold off. All right. Should I start mine? Yeah, go for it. Okay I think I'm going to do the blue and purple for this one We're just going to want to add a bit of isopropyl alcohol onto your brush Get a little bit wet That's all right And now I can just brush it out. Yeah, and then you're just going to spread it around And if you don't want colors to mix you can use a separate brush to Keep keep them separate. All right. And now I can lay the saran wrap on top. Yep So once you're happy with it, you just lay the saran wrap over top and sort of crinkle it up It's harder to crinkle than I thought It clings to there pretty good, but it's totally fine if it Sticks and you pick it up because it just adds more texture and kind of blends out the colors a bit too All right, and then once this is fully dry We're going to remove the saran wrap and we'll be left with this cool mosaic texture Oh, that's so cool So I just wanted to show the finished mosaic effect from the pieces that Hannah and I worked on the other day And when you peel this saran wrap off You're left with a beautiful mosaic effect and that one looks great as well So yeah, this is just another example of a type of technique that you can use for larger art pieces Or you can cut them up and use them for collages All right. So now that we're done all of our techniques, we're going to do some cutting and some collage work We've already got a saran wrap piece here that we made earlier Just for the sake of time We're going to use this one. So I'm just going to peel this saran wrap off to Reveal that mosaic texture there. That's so cool. I guess we should get started with our cutting Normally, I would recommend to seal these pieces with a kamar varnish before you cut But for the sake of time today, we're going to cut first and do our gluing and then we're going to seal our pieces after So basically with a collage like this you can cut out any sort of shapes that you want and that make you happy I think I'm going to go with a more organic style. Maybe a bit of a pebble shape But you can definitely do a geometric style or Anything that pleases your eyes. All right. That's a fun. Okay. So one thing that I Like to always start with is a background for my canvas You can either paint this or you can use a piece of upo paper or upo paper that you've Applied a background texture too. So I've got One right here. That's a bit darker on one side and then we've just got the plain white on the back side I think for mine Just because of the brightness of it. I'm going to use white And if you want to use the darker for yours, I think that would look great with your color palette So, um, what we'll do is start by just placing our canvases onto our paper and we're just going to Trace Slightly larger than the actual canvas itself Right. So now we've got those two circles and we just have to cut those out All right, so I'm just actually going to flip mine over to the reverse side And I've got a white background here those fit our canvases Pretty well So then what we're going to do is we're going to use this as our guide And that's going to help guide us in choosing the shapes that we want for our collage So I think I'm going to start with something like this And I'm going to create sort of an organic shape And basically all we want to do is just start cutting our textures and make a collage All right, so as you're cutting your collage pieces, you're just sort of looking for visually interesting little Snips within your bigger texture So for my design, I'm thinking that I'm going to go with a bit more of um Organic shape kind of almost looks like pebbles, I guess. Um And I think I'm going to add in some really bright accents. I'm going to cut some sort of thinner lines That's so cool. It looks kind of like funky easter eggs I think I'm going to go a little bit more in geometric I'm going to start off with some small squares and then See where my heart takes me. That looks amazing. Thank you So I'm just using these pebbles as a guide because I'm doing these lines here And I want to make sure My cut is accurate. So I'm just sort of tracing around this shape that I want on my piece And honestly when you're working with something like this and you've created all these different textures If something's not working out for you, it's so easy to just swap it out and switch directions And that's what I like about creating so many different textures is you have a ton of options when you're making these pieces Yeah, that's so true. I love that you used all of one piece because then it went really well together in the end. Thanks Okay, so if you're happy with your piece and you want to start Fixing them down on to the yupo. I'm just going to use some Super heavy gel medium It kind of acts like glue except it doesn't yellow And when you're doing art projects, you don't want yellowing glue on your art projects. So basically what we're going to do is just Paint it on like it's glue and stick it down in the places that you want it Um because the because we didn't seal these with kamar varnish Yet and we're going to wait to do that step up until after Um, you just want to be careful not to get too much on the front if you can Because this will lift off unsealed alcohol ink Okay, all right. So this is looking good to me. Are you happy with yours? Yeah, I think I'm done All right, great. Um, so the next step for us is to apply our finished piece onto our wooden canvas So we're going to actually use the same gel medium to glue it down onto the canvas So you want to do just kind of an even Thin coat you don't want to go too crazy with it and just make sure your edges Are nice and coated as well so that it sticks properly And then you're just going to Apply some pressure Okay, so Once it's stuck on we're going to flip it over and we're going to use an exacto knife to trim off the excess Okay So all you're going to do is just press down on your canvas and bring the exacto knife right up to the edge Right And mine right so this looks really good to me. I love how yours turned out So the next step in this is that we're going to seal it with our kamar varnish and then we're going to move on to resin Cool Okay, so now that our collages and our painting is done We're going to measure and mix our resin and pour it on our pieces I've got the art resin eight ounce kit here, which is actually the perfect size for all three of our pieces today So i'm just going to mix them up You want to be sure to measure by volume not weight And now we're just going to mix this up You want to scrape the sides and the bottom to make sure it's thoroughly mixed We're going to do this for about three to four minutes just to make sure everything's mixed properly Okay, so now that our resin's looking clear and fully mixed. It's time to pour them on our pieces So i'm just working on spreading this resin out over my canvas So we've taped the back of this canvas just in case any of this resin drips over the edges But the technique that i'm working on right now is a doming technique where The resin will hopefully stay contained within the top of my canvas So the great thing about art resin is that it not only protects your artwork, but it also provides a layer of UV protection Alcohol inks are susceptible to fading in sunlight or in bright conditions So it's really important to protect your work with a UV protectant Okay, and I think that just about does it All right, so now we're going to use the torch to get rid of some of these bubbles that have appeared at the surface of our pieces So we've torched all our bubbles. We got rid of any specks of dust and now we're just going to cover them up for the night All right, so things are looking really good with this project now that we've got that coat of resin on it We're going to set it aside to cure for the night and we can come back and take a look at the final result tomorrow Sounds good. See you tomorrow Okay, so we're back. It's been 24 hours and our pieces are all cured We're going to take the covers off and see what's under them. Wow. It looks so good. Yeah Yeah, I love how the resin makes the colors in these paintings really pop It sort of brings out all the different alcohol In colors and it actually picks up some of the finer details as well The 3d gold brings it to a whole other level too It looks really good These ones look great too the clear coat of resin really made the neons pop with the colors you chose and texture too I really love these little snippets of texture throughout. They almost look like their own little art pieces when you look at it Yeah, I totally see what you mean in this one too I was a little bit unsure of it when I was putting it all together But now that I see it with a clear coat of resin on top. I feel like it all Came together really well. Yeah, I love I love the dark the dark background How it that contrast kind of makes all these little pieces pop and like to me these look almost like little landscapes Yeah, they do The only issue with this one is a tiny fleck of something fell into it when the dust cover was on But that's not a big deal I can easily sand it down and come back later and then add another coat of resin to make it perfectly clear and smooth on top I'm really happy with how this one turned out And I'm really glad that you came out to teach me. It was a lot of fun to learn about this and I love learning about all the new techniques Yeah, thank you so much for having me here. I think these pieces look amazing We too Well, thanks for watching and I really hope you guys enjoyed the video. See ya