Tee over at Green Isle Crafts recently posted a very important article which she has kindly given me permission to reproduce here -
Save Your Paint Water Save the Environment
Acrylic paint is AWESOME because it’s soap and water clean up. However, that doesn’t mean you should pour it down the sink. Chemicals in the paint are not always good for you so we should try to avoid getting them in the ground water as much as possible.
“Great Tee. How am I supposed to clean my brushes??”
Rethink, Reuse and Evaporate.
Rethink the way you clean your brushes. I have two systems and the first is the one I’ve been using the longest… and most often.
Tee’s Tip: Clean your brush less often. You don’t have to clean between each color, work those colors together and blend them into your page for exciting and unexpected results
Tee’s Two Jar Brush Cleaning System:
Dirty Water – this jar has about 1/2” water and two drops of gentle dish soap
Clean Water – this is plain water with about 3/4 to 1” of water
Four steps to clean brushes with Tee’s Two Jar Brush System:
Before swishing the brush in the jar of water, wipe off the excess on another page in your journal, inside a phone book and then on a paper towel (or scrap of fabric like I do).
Then swish the brush in the dirty jar
Squeeze out the dirty water on the paper towel or rag
Swish in the clean water
Done! Your brushes are clean. Less paint goes into the jar because you took most of it off before you cleaned your brush. And at the end of the day:
Use the dirty water (see below) or dispose of in the Evaporative Bucket (also below).
Pour the “clean water” into your “dirty water” jar, add two drops of gentle dish soap
Add a small amount of water to your clean water jar
Now you are all set for tomorrow~
Tee’s Color Coded Brush Cleaning:
Get several jars and fill all of them with 1/2” water
Before swishing the brush in the jar of water, wipe off the excess on another page in your journal, inside a phone book and then on a paper towel (or scrap of fabric like I do).
Clean blue paint in one, red in another, yellow in another.. etc..
Rinse the brush in a separate jar of “clean” water
That’s it. You have jars filled with color washes. Use them, see below. (I only use this one when I want a special colored wash)
“Ok… Great Tee.. but you said not to pour the water down the drain. What do I ‘do’ with the leftover?”
Oh yes.. now the good bits~ Reuse the paint.
Color Washes – Use the washes to get rid of the dreaded white page syndrome. You know.. the book is new, the page is blank and I can’t do anything to it because of that. Swish those washes of color on there and boom~ No more white pages. Shadows – use the dark, every-color-imaginable one in a waterbrush for making shadows Color Mist – pour into spray bottles to spritz color onto your page. You just made your own. Add perfect pearls for Glimmer Mist.
Evaporative Bucket:
And.. when all is said and done and you still have dirty water to rid yourself of.. Evaporate it… Pour it into an Evaporative Bucket. (this tip came from Kevin Tobin of Golden)
Take a bucket and put some sand in there. Put it in your garage, on your back porch.. or under a low hanging eve. You want to avoid rain getting into your bucket. When you pour your dirty water in, the sand traps the paint and the water evaporates. Good for the environment and easy as can be. (no washing the sink after you’ve poured the paint water in)
So, thank you Tee for such an informative article. If you have enjoyed these ideas, please let your fellow artists know by sharing a link to this post – it is important information to get out there…
If you use waterbrushes, here is another tip from a seasoned journaler-on-the-go – cut the cuffs of old socks before you throw them away, slip one on your wrist and use it to clean your brush instead of carrying paper towels around with you which have a nasty habit of blowing away at the slightest gust of wind. An old tennis wristband would also work well.
If you want to pick up some excellent skills on watercolour journaling then head on over to Laure’s other website Imaginary Trips and check out her online classes.
I LOVE using PanPastels for my journal backgrounds – sometimes it is great not to have to wait for paint to dry… I especially love the soft subtle blending that can be achieved, and the wonderful tactile feel of the pages. I have been using them in my gratitude journal, and thought I would share some pre-prepared background pages -
The page bottom left (above) was created by applying Phthalo Blue and Hansa Yellow Shade and blending them where they meet. The flowers were created by stamping with Versamark, and then dusting very lightly over the stamping with Chromium Oxide Green for the stems/leaves and Red Iron Oxide shade for the flowers.
The page top right was created by blending Yellow Ochre and Permanent Red and then erasing the swirls with a pencil eraser (Pan Pastels erase very easily). The page bottom right was created by laying down a base coat of Yellow Ochre, and then dusting Red Iron Oxide shade over a Tim Holtz mask.
For most pages, simply rubbing well with a paper towel after applying the Pastel is enough to ‘fix’ the pages, however when applying over a mask or through a stencil, it may be necessary to use a fixative spray, although I haven’t done that yet with this page and it is holding up pretty well.
I also find that PanPastel can be easily used on smooth paper – usually soft pastel requires a paper with some ‘tooth’, but it is easy to get smooth ‘washes’ of colour on very smooth paper with this product as it is so low in dust and has an almost creamy consistency.
Over at Artella they are having a 50% off sale at their Vintage shop until November 30th.
Click on the image below to visit the Artella site to find out more
“The final day we’ll accept vintage orders in 2009 is November 30. Our new vintage store won’t be open until Spring of 2010, so if there are any vintage goods that interest you, now is the time to get them at 50% off…AND enjoy all the inspiring ARTSgiving bonuses below!
In addition to getting EVERY vintage item in Artella Mae’s Vintage General Store at 50% off, with each purchase, you also receive a Gift eCertificate good on ALL Artella eProducts:
Plus! EVERY purchase over $15 receives the fun ARTsgiving 2009 Holiday eBasket, including these fun, inspiring goodies:
The NEW Artella eBook, “Artella’s Step-by-Step Vintage Holiday Cards”
Our fun and useful eBooklet on making “10 Christmas Crafts in 10 Minutes”
Our beautiful collection of downloadable “Christmas Carol Background Papers”
A great way to create an interesting background for your journal pages is to add colour. However if use a wet medium such as watercolour or acrylic your pages may warp, unless you have good thick paper in your journal. Another option is to use soft pastels. The new PanPastels are ideal for this as they are soft and creamy and produce very little dust. You can create very soft blended effects – this example uses Yellow Ochre, Turquoise Shade and Hansa Yellow Shade, and was then lightly overstamped with Colorbox Chalk inks -
Looking for something different to give this Christmas? Why not inspire someone to keep a journal, by giving them a starter kit. Over in the Journal Craft store we have added to our range of Journal Kits, we now have a Travel Journal Kit which is ideal for anyone who is about to embark on a trip – even if it is to the neighboring town! The kit comes complete with our own booklet “How to keep a Travel Journal”, and everything you need to journal ‘on the move’.
We also have a journal starter kit, which includes Dan Price’s wonderful book “How To Make A Journal Of Your Life”.
Artists everywhere love nothing better than trying out new art materials – so why not treat them to a fantastic new product – PanPastel - highly pigmented artist’s Soft Pastel uniquely packaged in a pan We have sets of 5,10 and 20 and the individual Pans make ideal stocking fillers. We also stock a range of Sofft Tools specially designed for use with PanPastel.
Just a brief post to let you know we have updated our shopping site, you can now view and pay for our products in the currency of your choice – simply select your currency from the dropdown list in the mini cart on the right hand side. We accept secure payment by PayPal and ship worldwide.
We are also very excited to be offering PanPastels, the new artists pastels uniquely packaged in a pan - no more dusty crumbling pastel sticks to deal with! Pastels are wonderful for adding background colour to your journal pages without the problems of warping and buckling sometimes caused by wet media. They are available in 60 wonderful colours -
A great way to add colour to your pages is to use soft pastels. Because they are applied dry they don’t buckle the paper and you can easly write over the top.
Standard stick pastels can be used by directly applying to the page, or alternatively scrubbing the stick on a spare piece of paper to create pastel ‘dust’ and applying the colour with a cotton wool ball.
The new PanPastel that come in a plastic container are ideal, as they produce very little dust and give a smooth even coverage.
After you have applied the chalk, you need to rub the surface thoroughly with clean cotton wool or a tissue, to ensure that no residue rubs off onto the opposite page. Alternatively you can use a spray fixative.
Tip – when applying pastels it is a good idea to slip in a sheet of scrap paper below the page you are working on to prevent the dust from spreading to other pages in your journal.
This page is from the journal of Gill McCowen – Moleskine Sketchbook and Soft Pastels
(Click on the image to view original)
