24. Join the Splots

Hello again, a quick but fun one from me today, using up any splatty backgrounds you weren't happy with for gory movie and to get your creative juices literally flying free.

Join me in the bathroom or in your splat zone with your runny ink or watery paint and a very loose paintbrush, while I talk about Ralph Steadman.  

More specifically a ink 'painting' he did during his recent documentary 'for no good reason' with Johnny Depp,  Not knowing if you saw this I'll just quickly explain what happened and what I'm doing today.







While filming, he prepared his surface, dunked his brush in a pot of ink and for want of a better word slapped the brush down, leaving a big splodge on the surface.  From this scratched, sprayed and inked a man (with a spooky resemblance to Jimmy Nail i think)



To me it's a phenomenal talent to turn something so uncontrolled into an distinctive image, and as 'uncontrolled' is not a word commonly used with my work as I lean towards the precise, detailed with clean lines. But I do want to do something to dip my toe into the mixed media art journal craze, a little bit wonky and weird, and this is a guilt free one off leap of faith.

What is important to me is that its not what you create out of the splat its all about having a go. I freely admit haven't a millionth of his ability to do this, but I thought this was something I could have a go at and try to build on.

My first attempt:

Just from the same splat techniques from last week, I had some spare black inky pages and started drawing circles around to make eyeballs and faces,

Looking at my second page I could see the outline of wings, so I joined the dots and created this little fella.

Feeling a little braver next I let my brush 'hit' the paper giving a completely different look..

Its scary when you first see them dry so I tried look at them a couple of times, casually walk past them as I leave them around, and then looked at them as if they were those 90s magic eye paintings, what can you see??

They may not be amazing, but it was really more than a little fun, Have a go and what is to lose, it boils down to a couple of sheets of paper, and a hair raising few minutes of ink flinging, what's the worst that can happen?*

I have entered this in the Left of Center Challenge Blog.

I'd love to read your thoughts or see your work on the FB group,

Jas x


*please read disclaimer on Gory movie page, its not my fault Thelma. :)

12. Gory movies

I loved, loved, loved yesterdays Zombie, thank you Rebecca, I'm definitely giving that one a try :)

Everyone has seen a horror movie or two, or a film that was just a horror to watch,  some of which have quote or tag line that make it into popular culture or just your inner ear worm.

Why not mix them up for a nice quick and easy splat challenge, to create a page for your junk journal to go with Lou's covers.

First: pick the first movie quote that pops into your mind or a film that has some gore in it, if you're stuck there are plenty internet sites that help you find the top 25 horror movies, or tag lines, top 101 film quotes etc.

Next decide what type of background you want for this, I've had a go at a couple of layouts to hopefully get you inspired, and went with the standard black or white base, which can be coloured as much or as little as you like.

Finally and most importantly get your runny ink, sprays, or water down some paint, a very loose bristled brush or old toothbrush, read the disclaimer* below before beginning (be warned splatting causes the ink to go further than in a spray bottle) stand well back and splat.

For a fine mist I dipped the toothbrush into some ink (or scraped some of the ink from the spare splats), using the very tip of my thumb rubbed against it. You can change the direction of the spray, short rubs will get bigger drops where as going against the whole of the brush will give a finer mist but have less directional control.  

I went with 2 different techniques for adding the quote, added after the splats (red ink and birds) the black background + psycho designs I added the wording first, using Pebeo drawing gum to mask off the lettering, once completely and thoroughly dry, gently rub off the gum, leaving the background to show through and stand out - if one or two stray drops have snuck through cover them with marker.

If you want your writing to show up clearer, you have to make sure you get it 'bright' around the lettering, if you don't quite manage it, use a similar shade pen to deepen the colour, using a tiny tapping motion getting lighter the further away you go.  You can see I didn't get the effect I wanted first time around so have added more white. 

For larger splats, either use a long loose bristled brush, or the straw type thing inside the cap of a spray bottle works great.  If using the spray cap thingy it has a lot of ink already inside it, so you should get a really good coverage just with that.  The less ink you load your brush with the better the effect than if its sopping. 

You can also get different shaped splats, if you flick against a vertical surface and touch your paper too it, its less circular drops/drips, more directional spatter.

With any project you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want, adding printed quotes, or adding background imagery, its totally up to you. 

I hope you have a go, and have as much fun as I did there is something artistically freeing about just inking up and letting it fly.. Good luck on the clean up xx

I have entered this into the A Step In the Darkness Challenge.

Jas x 

Psst,  if you have any pieces that you aren't quite happy with, keep them safe they might come in handy later on for another quick project.

*Disclaimer - I do all my splatting in the bath, a) because I've dyed my hair more colours than Joseph's coat so I know it will rinse down and come completely clean, b) I don't have to worry about getting the ink stains anywhere else. I also occasionally ink outside on the grass, because it'll either wash off or cut out, and in a week no one will know  the difference... DO NOT spray or splat without protection that you are happy with and any stray or permanent spots are not my fault. be warned splatting causes the ink to go further than normal spraying.. 

9. Old book decorations

Say Halloween to me and instantly I conjure images of old gnarly faced hags bearing nice red juicy apples.  But buying red apples takes all the fun out of it plus what I do buy, I need for bobbing.  Instead get out the old book I warned you about earlier.

Now make sure if you're joining along, this isn't a special or first edition, it's not part of a set that you'll be able to sell or want to read again, and at this point I'm adding a disclaimer that it's your choice what book to use, it's not my fault :)

I've created all three of these out of a children's book about a cheer leading witch.

Now admittedly next time I do these I would make them slightly smaller, but my book was 5"width, so I went with that. I'd probably try cutting the outer margin off first, giving 3.5" or 4" max, as whatever size you start with will be slightly smaller than what you end up with, and these 5" books ended up huge.

Whatever size you decide - you need to remove the front cover and spine, leaving the glue attached, and count out 2 lots of 20 pages.

Next, square it off - fold the bottom corner up diagonally into the middle spine, giving you a square, draw your 'cut' line, unfold and cut all 40 pages. (I found by folding the pages up from the bottom you have less gaps for the chapter headings giving a nicer overall finish)









Fold each page in to the middle spine adding a tiny bit of glue to the underside as you go, this will help keep in any stray pages. 

Pick a design shape. 
You need to create a template no bigger than this half of the page, (with a 5" book your template should be no wider than 2.5) 
make sure that at least one point your design comes right to the folded edge 


As you can see above the cross lines are my waste around the cut line, but at the widest point I'm not cutting down the seam, this leaves the pages joined together, some will be accidentally cut which is why you need to glue each fold.

At around every 5 pages, slot in your template draw and cut round all 5 pages together, carry on going until complete.

Glue the 2 halves together to create a full shape.

Fluff the pages out to create a full standing circle.


Decorate with inks, pens and embossing powders: 
for the pumpkin I watered down some orange dylusions ink and painted on with a brush, around all the outside edges and one central face page, I drew out my pumpkin design and coloured the darker bits with a red pen, using Distress ink in black soot, I darkened the edges further.

The apple was inked in a similar way to the pumpkins, using highlighing glitter pen to create sheen around the edge and green pen with glitter for the surprise poison centre.

I have entered this into the Corrosive Challenge Blog for Halloween.

Hope you have as much fun as I did.

Jaz x