Experiments with acrylic paint | smooch, rub, lift

Creativity is an elixir of life. It keeps us from being dried up and brittle by keeping the essence of our life-force juiciness channeling into new ideas, projects and visions. Heatherash Amara

I love experimenting with acrylic paint. Making collage papers or mixed media papers is my favorite way to experiment and play, just letting what ever happen on the page be as is. Because it’s just loose thin copy papers the results is not that important, which leaves you free to make a mess. I often find that mess darling beautiful.

I love how some papers looks horrible at first, but then grow on you…

Others you instantly love and want to recreate – but it’s hard. You’ve got to go with the flow in the process. For the smooch, rub, lift technique that my friend and I wanted to experiment with, you smooch acrylic paint between two pages of a magazine, rub them together and then lift to separate.

You have no idea what the outcome will be until you’ve done a couple of rounds of smooch-rub-lift on each magazine page. I haven’t been painting a lot on magazine pages, so this experiment was fun just for the reason to try that – but the smooshy papers are also delightful. Here are a few of our experiments:

I can’t take any credit for coming up with this idea, but I had fun playing with it.

This technique is taught in the online art journaling class fall 21 Secrets by one of the 21 teachers, Catherine Anderson. Her class is called Media remix and it’s the first one out in the e-book/class since the teachers are added in alphabetical order. It’s also the first one I have taken the time to go through for realz. So glad I did.

I think that Media remix was super fun and inspiring. Catherine shows several techniques, like cutting spirals, how you can use rubbing plates to add design elements into the painted page, how to use magazine pages as stencils and shapes, and then finally how to make a little journal from your painted magazine pages.

We had a lot of fun following along in her videos, of which there are several. …and with my friend visiting it was even more enjoyable. I love learning new things and creating together with friends!

I also adore making mini books! Getting to make this booklet was one of the best part of Catherine’s class. It’s something I will be diving into more this year, maybe even creating an online class of my own if you’d be interested in creating little mini booklets along with me? Let me know.

I think my book turned out very cute:

The pages are not too thin because I glued two smooch-rub-lift-painted magazine pages together. I also reinforced the spine and the edges of the cover with this patterned cloth tape. It’s from a hockey shop – meant for using on the handle of a hockey stick… But hey, it’s tape so I love it. Pink tape!

I’m not sure what I’ll use this mini booklet for yet, so you suggestions are welcome below.

After Catherine Anderson‘s class comes my class Art Journal Collage – since my full name is Hanna Andersson, and then Orly Avineri’s which I watched and am excited to try out as soon as I have some more time.

I wrote about my part of 21 Secrets when the workshop launched this fall, check it out here. This is the description of my class, Stick with it, dear paper horder:

I am a fan of collage and recycling materials and here I am combining these two things. In my workshop I will talk about what kind of paper you can collect and play with when it comes to collage – and where to find it without spending much on fancy papers. I’ll tell you my secrets on where I find the best stuff?

Then when you’ve got your scrap inbox ready, we’ll create an art journal spread with these pieces of paper and a trusted glue stick. You will experience the magic and joy of collage, and afterwards I think you’ll be wanting to stick with this art form for a long time!

This huge class launched in fall, but if you’re interested in buying it you can still get all this goodness! I might be biased, but I am inspired by it. If you buy it though my affiliate link I get payed, which is super nice. Thanks in that case.

Smoosh on my friends!