Great Video on Creating Backgrounds for your Paintings...

I stayed up late last night, searching for youtube videos that sparked my interest, and I have another 2 videos here to share with you.  I often get questions about how I do my backgrounds, and as I haven't had a chance or time to do a video tutorial of my own, these videos, and the background technique that she shows is very similar to how I usually start my paintings and art journal pages.  There are a lot of ways to create a background, but this is a great representation of how to start! These videos were provided by Michael's Craft Store and the artist is Kathy Kromer...



I really like how she explains hiding the edges of the paper, and how to use darker colors to make things "receed" and lighter colors to make things "pop".  I have never used alcohol inks in my paintings either, so that's something new I learned from her and will have to give it a try soon!

I can't remember if she mentioned this or not, but something that's really important for me when building layers is to use more transparent mediums so that parts of your layers show through one another.  Some of my favorite supplies for doing this is Golden Fluid acrylics, Tim Holtz distress inks, and Golden Glaze Medium for using with my more heavy bodied acrylics.  I almost forgot about my InkTense colored pencils...they are a watercolor pencil that turns permanent once dry.  They are a great alternative/addition to using fluid acrylics if you don't have them.  You can also use any watercolor pencil or crayon, and instead of using water with them, just dip your brush in a glaze medium to spread the color and it will dry permanent...

That's it for now I guess.  My head is swimming with ideas at the moment, so I can't sit still any longer!  Hope you enjoy these videos, there is a lot to learn from them!