Book of Time

Hello My Friends!
Get ready for total mixed media awesomness with this brand new art piece from Karolina!

Unique book/journal art at its best accompanied by a video tutorial and Karolina's expert advice. What more can you wish for to get a creative weekend going? ;)

Enjoy!

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Today I'd like to show you a notebook cover that I've recently created.

With spring around the corner, I feel the time of monochrome inspirations has gone for me and I'm having more and more fun playing with various colors.

It is quite possible that all the color explosions in my head are caused by the release of the delicious new Metallique acrylic paints! ;) I find this new palette energizing and very inspiring...

I started by applying White Gesso on my journal's cover (including the spine) and then I created a beautiful texture with Graphite Texture Paste and a stencil.

3D Gloss Gel helped me to fix some lovely chipboard embellishments - my first layer of decorations.

I added a coat of the new Art Extravagance Rust Effect Pastes: Camouflage and Metal Rust.

They are amazing! You can apply them with a sponge, a palette knife, a texture tool or an ordinary paintbrush. They are matte and opaque and I love their effect!

Then I used Metallique and Sparks paints for more color - I covered all the embellishments and dried them. Unless you want to mix colors, make sure every layer of paints and media is thoroughly dry to avoid muddy mess.

I was playing with different acrylic paints colors and also a bit of Brass toned Patina Effect Paste until I was happy with the overall look. For me, this is one of the most satisfying parts of the creative process. :)

I also like to add a bit of a matte finish splashing some watered down Black Gesso you will see exactly how I do it in my video tutorial below.

It was the first time I worked with new Finnabair's Dubbing Brushes and I must admit that they are perfect for shading, applying products and brilliant for creating textures!

You really need to get your own!

To enrich my project and give it a more three-dimensional effect, I added lovely Art Ingredients: Art Stones, Glass Glitter and Glass Beads.
They create stunning effects and are very versatile. Different Finnabair Art Ingredients are brilliant to help you create interesting backgrounds and unusual textures and can of course serve as charming fillers for little bottles (have you seen Kasia's tags?) or different Mechanicals (like I did in this project). Endless fun!

Please enjoy this video tutorial and see step by step how I altered this notebook cover.

I just love altering objects and giving them a completely new life and direction.

In a way, I feel I can take them into a different era and feel the nostalgy of time travel thanks to some simple tricks with paints and textures.

Real magic, wouldn't you admit? :)

I hope you're feeling inspired to create some of it yourselves.

xx
Karolina

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