HOORAY FOR MASKING FLUID!I had never heard of masking fluid until late last year and it really is quite an interesting little material to use. I thought I'd share a bit about it for you and some things that I have done while incorporating it.
I'm writing this primarily as a response to a video I posted on YouTube. I decided to decorate a cover of a visual journal I have and used masking fluid and decided instead of filling up the little info box over there, I'd direct you here so I could elaborate!)
Masking fluid is a really quite interesting thing, it's a bit difficult to explain I guess. It reminds me of how your fingers are when glue dries to them. How when you peel it off it comes off in a sheet. THAT is the magic of masking fluid. Its a liquid that dries fairly quickly and becomes a rubbery film that essentially masks or protects whatever it covers. It peels extremely easily and comes off in large pieces so it's quick and painless to use.
I'll quickly run through what I did to decorate my journal cover here- nothing crazy but lots of fun!
(awesome action shot!)The materials I used:
-Masking fluid
-A yucky paint brush that was pretty much ruined (I have a designated masking fluid/mod podge brush)
-Acrylic paints
-Glitter glue
-Something point (I used a mechanical pencil and a needle) OR an eraser
1. First what I did was apply the masking fluid, I decided I wanted a big old flower in the center so I shook up my masking fluid and painted it on. Now here are a couple things to remember (1. Masking fluid dries really quite quickly and is virtually impossible to get out of a paintbrush. Some say hot water and soap quickly after but I honestly cant imagine that happening unless I stopped every two seconds to wash it out thoroughly so use something you dont mind ruining. 2. You always have to shake the fluid first, and in doing that it ALWAYS creates a billion baby bubbles, I dont know how to avoid that. I just try to ignore them. But something you have to remember is while the fluid is drying the bubbles will pop, when they pop they will leave space uncovered and if you dont go over a few times while drying you'll end up with small dots that color goes through.)
2. Let dry. SERIOUSLY let it dry, if you do a few layers it will take a while, make sure to WAIT IT OUT. I am the most impatient person int he world but if you paint over it and it's still wet everything will smudge and the whole purpose will be defeated.
3.Once you are sure that it is dry (It kind of has a bit of a tacky feel to it though so be aware) paint away! Don't even think about what you're doing just paint however you want.
4. LET DRY. SERIOUSLY LET THAT DRY. C'mon i'm not kidding. Do as I say not as I do. I made it about 2 minutes before I started picking at the wet paint and made some mistakes. It really is best to just walk away, make some tea, watch tv or something and forget it until its completely dry.
5. Once it's dry it's time for the awesome fun part! The peeling! Now when using acrylic paint, sometimes its hard to see where you put your fluid. If you made thicker layers it will be raised but thinner layers sometimes blend in. What I did since I didnt want for the paint to dry was I used something pointy (mechanical pencil/needle- although the pencil lead got onto my cover underneath so I switched halfway through) Take your pointy device and gently pull away at the fluid you can see. It will peel off effortlessly. If you actually wait for the paint to dry, take a white eraser and gently erase over your paint. Make sure not to do it too hard becuase you don't want to life the actual paint, but this method is much easier especially for getting up fluid you cant necessarily see. It will all roll up and you can grab it and pull.
6. I added glitter glue to make it a bit more interesting but the embellishments and details are really up to you!!
What else can you do with masking fluid?
I found this completely awesome awesome awesome tutorial that a girl on craftster.org made for making watercolor portraits (that look so amazingly intricate and difficult) using masking fluid! It's so easy it's ridiculous. I'll try to find the lady and I'll post a quick how to at a later date, but if you follow my youtube at all you'll see an example of what it is.. I took a still frame of it here:
Oh and one more thing. I decorated the cover to one of my smaller visual journals the other day. I started video taping it, but got distracted and didn't end up working on it until late at night. It was a complete experiment but I'll show you the final product and a bit of an explaination in another post. This is getting long and I know some people lose interest after a long post ha ha!
Play! Experiment! Make some kick butt art -PLEASE:D
Thanks for sharing, very interesting tute! ~Diane
ReplyDelete