mixed media Archives - Studio Katie

Dual Brush Pens + Gesso Mixed Media Art Journal…

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that I have a new tutorial up on the Tombow blog (my first for 2019!) showing you how to create a Mixed Media Art Journal Background using Dual Brush Pens and Gesso.

This is a really fun technique for a colorful, but bright and airy background.

Click here to read the full tutorial on the Tombow blog.

Want some Tombow tutorials? Check out my online class, Tombow Techniques! or check out my Tombow archives here on the blog.

DIY

DIY Stenciled Wrapping Paper

(This post is sponsored by DecoArt, however all opinions are my own. I only promote products I love and use, and really enjoyed using DecoArt’s products for this tutorial.)

Hey friends! So, a fun fact: I’ve never done an advent calendar before. This year I really wanted to do one, and I also decided to create my own wrapping paper to have all 12 of the gifts be fun and matching!

I partnered with DecoArt to make this tutorial and show you how I’ve made my own DIY Stenciled Wrapping Paper! So let’s get to it:

Supplies:

Roll of Kraft Paper
DecoArt Polka Dot Pop Stencil
DecoArt Value Kraft Stencils: Believe, Joy, & Dashing Snow
DecoArt Americana Acrylic Paints: I used True Red, Carousel Pink, Cotton Candy, Sour Apple, Light Buttermilk & Lamp (Ebony) Black.
Paint Brush, Stencil Brush, and/or Sponge Dabber.
Painter’s Tape

I used Kraft colored paper for my DIY Stenciled Wrapping Paper because it’s 1. Cheap, and 2. easy to customize, but obviously you can start with any colored paper roll you wish.

Stenciling your gift wrap is so easy. I’ll be sharing some of my tips and ideas for putting together a cohesive gift wrap theme!

Step one:

An easy way to start your gift wrap is to stencil on a first layer. Use a stencil brush to fill in the polka dot pop stencil.

You can also hold down the edges of the stencil with painters tape so that it doesn’t move on you while you’re working.

Step two:

Now we’ll be layering on more designs!

I used a small paintbrush to brush on dashes around each polka dot on a darker pink and added some smaller white polka dots. Once that is dry, it’s time for one more layer. I placed the snowflake stencil on top and brushed True Red acrylic paint through that.

Step three:

Another easy background is to do some abstract brush strokes onto your kraft paper. Squirt a little bit of each color onto a palette & use a 1″ paint brush to add strokes of paint in lines across the paper.

Step four:

And once your brushstrokes are dry, you can layer another design over top like I did with the ornament stencil below.

You can keep your backgrounds pretty simple, such as just painting stripes onto the paper, or go more detailed. For the gifts below I painted stripes, and once the gifts were wrapped, I used a couple of DecoArt stencils on the top of each present to further customize it.

To number my advent calendar, I used a small paintbrush and Americana Acrylic paint to number 12 black tags and attached them to each gift.

You can also wrap the gifts and twine, add tassels & candy canes for more festivity!

My best tips to make your own DIY Stenciled Gift Wrap:

Tape down your stencil or use a sticky vinyl stencil.
Use either a stencil brush or a sponge dauber.
Don’t use too much paint, this is what causes your stencil to bleed. Instead, squirt a small amount of paint onto a palette, dip your brush/sponge into it, then pounce it a few times on a piece of scrap paper to get excess paint off before going over your stencil.

As I said, I made these as my own advent calendar, but now I think I’ll do some more stenciled gift wrap to use on my friends gifts. I love that everything from the gift to the wrapping paper is handmade!

For another fun Christmas project, check out my tutorial for Mixed Media Christmas Postcards!

Tutorials

DIY Christmas Postcards

This post contains affiliate links, which help pay for this site. That being said, I never promote anything I don’t love! If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Hey everyone, Today’s post is sponsored by The Hungry Jpeg. They’re a really cool website, with tons and tons of clip art, graphics, fonts, etc available to purchase (and some freebies).

For today’s project I’m using designs from one of their current bundles, The Winter Holidays Vol. 1, (which has over 2,600 graphic files) to make mixed media Christmas Postcards!

Supplies:

Graphics from The Winter Holidays Clip Art Bundle
Watercolor Paper or Cardstock
Gel Medium
Paintbrush
Gesso
Scissors
Acrylic Paint
Tombow Dual Brush Pen
Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen
Black Ink Pad

For these postcards I printed out a selection of graphics, but I ended up only using the adorable bunny & polar bears from the Winter Forest graphics, and trees and poinsettias from Classic Christmas, and a few patterns from the Scandinavian Tale collection.

Step 1. Cut your watercolor paper down to 4×6″ pieces. I tore up some of the patterned papers and adhered them down onto the postcards. I usually use gel medium on mixed media projects like this because it sticks everything down well.

Step 2. Brush over the patterns with a very light coat of gesso, or white acrylic paint. This is just to tone down the colors and patterns.

Step 3. Cut out your graphics and decide on placement. Brush gel medium onto the backs and adhere them onto the postcards.

Step 4. Use the Dual Brush Pens and Fudenosuke to write on holiday messages, and add doodles.

Step 5. Rub the edges of each postcard along the black ink pad to darken the edges.

Step 6. Use a small paintbrush to add little polka dots of colorful acrylic paint.

And that’s it. I made these in a little assembly line by doing each background first and then moving onto the next step, but they’re all different. I really enjoyed experimenting with the variety of designs.

You can just add your message onto the back of your Christmas Postcards, address it, stamp it and send it off in the mail like any normal postcard! 🙂

You can grab The Winter Holidays Vol. 1. Bundle RIGHT HERE, and it’s only $19 until November 25th!

I was pretty impressed with the sheer amount of cute winter and holiday clipart that was included. I haven’t even gotten to print it all yet. I can’t wait to make a project with some of the cute Scandinavian designs.

Aren’t these polar bears so cute? They’re my favorite.

Art Journals

3 Ways to Use the Tombow XL Blending Palette

Today I wanted to do a little product feature of Tombow’s new XL Blending Palette and show you some of the ways that you can use it! The concept of the blending palette isn’t a new one, they’ve been selling their original Blending Palette for quite a while, but they’ve just come out with this new size and I love it.

The XL Blending Palette is an 8×10″ sturdy laminated card with a nice white surface (to see and blend inks) on one side, with a Dual Brush Pen color chart and blending tips printed onto the back.

Let’s see a few ways to use the XL Blending Palette:

Technique 1: Blending the Colors.

This was one of my favorite things about the smaller Blending Palette, and the XL Blending Palette just gives me even more room to play around with this technique.

Here’s how to blend the markers and get some ombre style lettering:

1: Apply a darker color of ink to the Blending Palette.

2: Pink up the dark ink with a lighter color marker, make sure you’ve pretty well covered the lighter tip in the darker ink.

3: Letter onto your paper with the lighter marker. As you write, the darker ink will wear off, and your marker will go back to it’s original ink color.

The Dual Brush Pens are self cleaning, so all you have to do is write with them, or scribble on a piece of paper and they go back to normal. This technique won’t hurt any of them. 🙂

Technique #2: Watercolor Drips.

While not actually watercolors, the Dual Brush Pens are water reactive, so they can act similar to watercolors and can be used for many of the same types of projects as you would the paint.

For this technique you’ll need the XL Blending Palette, a Dual Brush Pen, a misting bottle with water and a journal.

1: Apply a generous amount of Dual Brush Pen ink to the top third of the XL Blending Palette by scribbling it on.

2: Mist with water, and tilt the blending palette so that the ink runs down toward the bottom a little.

3: Lay flat again and lay your journal face down on top of the blending palette. Press down to transfer the ink and then lift up.

4: Let dry.

I found a new EASY way to make a drippy “watercolor” page. How: scribble ink onto @tombowusa new XL Blending Palette, mist with water and let the ink run downwards. Next place your journal fave down onto the ink to transfer it, and then lift it back up! 🎨so much fun!💗 The XL blending palette is brand new & available in @tombowusa’s VIP box, but that’s supposed to sell out SOON. 😬 you can find the link to it on my blog. . #Tombow #tombowusa #tombow2018dt @tombowusa #tombowvipclub #dualbrushpen #archerandolive @archerandolive Notebook #bujo #bujoinspiration #bulletjournal #dotgrid

A post shared by Katie Smith (@studio.katie) on Jul 25, 2018 at 7:48am PDT

As you can see below, I didn’t have any ghosting/bleeding through to the next pages of my journal. You want to make sure you don’t use TOO much water or they could ghost through, but the pages in my Archer and Olive notebook are very thick so I didn’t have that problem.

Technique 3: Mixed Media!

The XL Blending Palette is so handy for mixing mediums on! Here I’m using Dual Brush Pen ink to color Modeling Paste.

1: Scribble the Dual Brush Pen ink onto the blending palette.

2. Use a spatula to mix a little bit of modeling paste into the ink.

3. Use the spatula to apply your new colored medium through a stencil (or however you want to use the modeling paste!) onto your art journal page!

4. Remove the stencil, and wash the stencil, spatula & blending palette.

So there you have 3 fun techniques you can use with the Blending Palette, but those aren’t the only 3. Feel free to experiment and play with the palette to see what you can do!

Here are a few more projects I’ve used the Blending Palette on:

You can find the XL Blending Palette available for purchase here.