Creating Texture with Paint - part 4 (stamps - kinda, smacking, and a bit of stencil)

Although I have quite a few commercial stamps, I'm always interested in using found objects or objects not actually found in the stamp section of your art and crafts store.

One of my favorites (and I have used it OFTEN) is an old brayer I got at a garage sale. It is one which releases the roller quite easily. I randomly wrapped a rubber band around it and returned the roller to the handle. Then I gather paint gently, so it doesn't get to much into the spaces between the rubber bands. Then I just roll it on.

Here is a photo of the roller as I used it for the leaves on "Two Roads Diverged"

And here is a piece I did with blue on blue hand-dyed fabric. Some of these pieces are made for a particular purpose. I just love to make surface design that creates texture!

I also used this technique to create the texture of fallen twigs as the background fabric in one of my Up Close and Personal pieces inspired by one of my macro photos. This one is of a rock among fallen twigs. I took this photo on a trip to Texas. The first photo is of the piece itself. The second is the original photo with the art quilt.

*****Just as an added painting bonus...the shading on the smaller stones is done with Shiva Paint sticks.

Another technique I learned here called Smacking. Only problem is I can't find it to tell you who shared this technique originally. But I know you are out there so let me know and I'll post the credit where credit is due. I LOVE the simplicity of this technique and the texture it creates is wonderful!!

OK....here it is.

You will need some plexi. (I found a bunch of those clear acrylic stand up photo frames on FreeCycle!). If you just have flat plexi you will need a handle. The person who showed this technique had found one that had two suction cups on either end of something that looks like a drawer handle. I also used a larger piece of plexi to smack the paint onto. Anyway, then you only need perhaps some paint, a paint brush and some fabric!  Here goes.....

I chose three different greens and just squirted then onto the plexi frame (the base makes a great handle!)

Then I just smeared it all around just to cover the surface.

Next, I "Smacked" the frame all over the sheet of plexi until it was covered. It makes the greatest veins or branches or whatever you want to see.

Finally, place the fabric gently onto the sheet of plexi with the smacked paint. It works best to start at one end and kind of roll the fabric onto the plexi. Then press gently being careful not to move the fabric and smear the paint. Then gently again...raise the fabric off the plexi.  WOOHOO!! beautiful texture appears!

I used this exact piece a couple of times in the quiltlets in my Pecan Series. Here are some very close up details of those two pieces.

In "Emergence" I used it twice - top right and bottom left corners

In "Winter Harvest" it is smack (pun intended) in the middle)

Another painting bonus!!! in the photo above....notice that the ground cover texture is created with my rubber band covered brayer!

And one more stamping kinda.

For this background fabric, I used a piece of brown paper that came as padding in a box shipped here. Just smooshed it up, the with a roller, painted it a bit. Then I pressed it onto a strip of fabric left over from another project. I used a green metallic paint.

Then I used punchinella as a stencil. I painted specifically between some of the folded paper paint.

And finally with my rubber band covered brayer, painted on some blue metallic....just a touch.

In case you are interested, a piece of this fabric was also used in "Emergence". You can see it in the photo above - center bottom! Oh how I love my texture painted fabrics!!

Well, I think that is it for today. You will want to check out Free For All Friday tomorrow. I've saved another short tutorial from one of our guest artists - Ann Scott. It is so way cool!!! 

E-mail in those photos for Free For All Friday!! Come on...I KNOW there are a bunch of you talented artists that love to use paint to create texture. Can't wait to see it!

Kelly@KellyLHendrickson.com