Wednesday 2 October 2013

Decorating the covered File Folders

So now you are faced with fair few strip covered folders.  What to do with them? Well I have a few ideas:


1) – Gesso – spread some gesso over the brightest strips use your fingers to spread it around – you want the result to be semi transparent in some places and opaque in others. See before and after pic below. Set aside to dry.

Before


After



2) Watercolour/Gouache wash – Add some water to your colour and spread around with a brush or a baby wipe - keep in mind that water-colour will re-activate if you put any wet media over the wash. One way to stop the colour moving is by using some clear gesso over the top of the wash. – Set aside to dry.

Before 



After 

As you can see - I've added quite a bit of gouache to my palette - I had a lot of wash left over - so coloured some printer paper and old book pages - as well as a journal I had on my desk. This is the result - 

Old book paper



Journal and a sheet of watercolour paper
 

Cheap printer paper

You can use all the above in later projects - keep it near your desk so anytime you have excess paint or colour just slap it onto these papers and you will have a really unique background to glue into your art journal.

Next time, I will go through mixing up an acrylic wash and adding texture to your file folders.

Until then,
Happy crafting.

Fae x