Challenge - 05

Let's play with masking tape this week. Some of you may have heard of something called Washi Tape. It is making tape with pretty patterns, colors, etc. You can see two rolls in the photo above. Washi Tape is a lot of fun to play with, but I find that it is ridiculously expensive. And we all know that when our art supplies are expensive we hesitate using them and just end up hoarding instead. What fun are art supplies if we wont use them.

So instead I use regular masking tape. You can find so many different brands, sizes, textures, and 'stickiness strength' (quality). You can use these different tapes for textures or even decoration on your pages. And they are fun to play with. Just always remember they are masking tapes which are made to be removed again so they might not always stick too well, and might even come off when getting wet. I also include medical tape in my collection, but again, it is made to come off, so keep that in mind when you use it.

I am going to show you two ways to use tape on your pages. This first one is the regular Add, Paint, Remove way:

First I added a few lines of masking tape to my pages. It really depends on your paper how well this will work. Some paper will tear when you pull off the tape, and in other instances, it will come off really nicely. My journal that I used here is an old children's dictionary where I covered the pages with some really cheap gesso.

Next I applied some acrylic paint using an old plastic card. Just scrape it on. Dont worry about being neat.

I then gently removed the tape while the paint is still somewhat wet. You can see how the tape removed some of my gesso from the page, but I like that "worn" look, so it is OK with me.

On this next one I am going to use the tape to create texture. So I will not be removing the tape again.

I used several different brands of masking tape and medical tape to create various different textures on my background. And because I am not going to remove the tape again I used my finger to really rub over the tape to make sure it was sticking to the paper.

Again I used my plastic card to apply the paint. 

This is the result of the first one. After I applied the paint and removed the tape I didn't do anything else. This page is now ready in my journal to be used soon. 

And this is the result of the second version. I used primary cyan, phthalo blue, and turquoise green. I used the hair dryer to dry the paint just a little between colors. Just to make sure it didnt become mud. Then I added some titanium white to the entire page. Just a thin layer.
I then took my little water spray bottle and just sprayed a little water on the page. Just to allow for a few drops (mist). I quickly scraped over the water droplets with a clean plastic card and it produced the effect you see in the photo.

THE CHALLENGE:
This week I would love to see you all play a little with some tape. You can use the techniques I used above or you can make up your own. Any way you choose to do this challenge is fine. As long as you play with tape, the cheap kind.
You can choose to just make a background to use later or you can do a finished page.

SAMPLE:

I thought I would add this page I just made from the background from this challenge. It didnt turn out at all the way it was supposed to LOL. I was testing a homemade spray paint which turned out it didnt work at all the way I wanted it to work. But since we all will have pages that dont turn out the way we wanted them to I thought I would share mine.

I added the butterfly and lady. Then I had my little spray paint snafu. Then I decided to try out some new crayons and I used those to just apply more color.

Then I stamped words to a couple of pieces of masking tape. I used a hair dryer to set the ink. Then I tore them to size and used a glue stick to adhere them to the page. 

To stamp the words on the tape I tore off a couple of longer pieces of tape and applied them to a glossy piece of card board. Then I stamped on the words. Since I had the tape on glossy cardboard it came off easily and I could then tear to size and apply to my page.  

REMEMBER: Art Journaling is not about the beginning or the end. It is all about the process.

Have Fun!

And if you do feel up to it, please share pages at our Flickr gallery HERE

If interested in checking out some Japanese Washi Tape you can take a look CuteTape.com I personally don't feel that washi tape is a necessity to make beautiful art. I think you can make beautiful art with just any kind of cheap or found tape. You might also consider adding other types of tape to your stash.

Duck Brand has all sorts of fun tapes. Duct tape now comes in all sorts of colors and patterns. Some of my favorite tapes from Duck Brand are their Printed EZ Start tape, especially the Paisley one. Yummy. Again, they are not a necessity. Just for fun!