Video:

Photos:

          Ginivir’s ‘Hello’ Mini Album

Materials

• Watercolour paper, 7 sheets cut into rectangles 15 x 30cm

• Grey cardboard 3mm thick, 2 rectangles 16 x 31cm and some extra for cut-outs

• 1 piece of black cardstock

• Ink stamps; text for background (Lime Citron), some simple patterns like dots, stars, circles, splashes, (L’encre et L’image)

• Ink stamps (XO)

• plain white badge, 45mm (Scrapbuttons)

• Screen printing frame (Scrapbuttons 100% Artistique), Heidi Swapp art screens, gouache paint: white, light pink, yellow/orange and paint scraper (or an old shopping loyalty card)

• Stencils and rub on transfers (Kesi’art)

• Coloured modelling paste (Aladine)

• Die cutting dies (DIY & Cie)

• Black ink (Archival Ink), Izink dye ink (Aladine or Ranger Distress)

• Light pink embossing powder (American Crafts)

• White gesso

• Coloured pencils (Ferby)

• 2 metal rings (Binder ring snap open type)

• Double-sided sticky tape

• Acrylic paints, watercolour paints

Instructions

Start with your pieces of watercolour paper and some acrylic paint. Use a finger to spread some paint onto one or two areas of each page, layering colours one on top of the other. Use the same combination of colours on each of the pages, on both the fronts and the backs. Dry the paint. The rest of the work you will do on your pages will be anchored on these areas of colour.

Make yourself a temporary stencil from a sheet of paper by cutting out two squares, one 3 x 3cm and the other 4 x 4cm. Find a couple of ink stamps to use on your background, one with fine lines of text and another with dots. Position your improvised stencil and stamp the squares onto your pages, making one or two squares on each page. Dry.

Next screen print all of the pages: first with large circles in matte white paint, then small circles in light pink and light orange, then some small dots or a word with a darker shade of orange. Dry the paint in between applications and make sure that you do all of the pages, front and back. Use some separate sheets of paper to screen print some words in orange that you will be able to use for your title.

You might want to make your own colour and come back and print the pattern a second time, perhaps over the top of the first one but slightly offset, or in a different place.

Take your stamp with the splash shape and print it on your pages using pink and orange paint, again remembering to do both the fronts and backs. Stamp on some slightly larger patterns and emboss them. Why not mix up the colours a bit, perhaps orange dye ink embossed with light pink. Emboss patterns on five of your pages.

At this point you should organise your pages and put them together into the order that you want them.

Take an ink stamp with text on, ink it with orange dye ink and stamp it on some of the pages.

Choose a stencil and use a spatula to spread a small area with some coloured modelling paste. When this is dry, choose another stencil, with a more delicate pattern and spread another colour of modelling paste on another small area, then dry again.

Now position your photos on your pages and stick them down with double-sided sticky tape.

Using watercolours paint the areas around your photos, starting your brushstrokes on the edges of the photos and using paint to pick up the colours in the pictures and elongate them out onto the pages. You could add some touches of fluorescent colour or extend your lines around the circles printed onto your background. Be careful not to get much of your watercolour paint on top of the patterns stamped with dye ink, as they will dilute it. The same goes for the patterns that you have screen printed with gouaches.

You should also use coloured pencils to make some patterns which start on the photos and flow into the pages. Do this on all of your pages. On the page without a photo you should still stamp the same patterns underneath the square block of text that you stamped on with your improvised stencil.

Stamp some stars onto a spare sheet of watercolour paper then cut these out. Use some small single stars and some rows of smaller stars together in a line. Make enough so that you have at least one for each page, as well as the cover, and about three of the strips of the smaller stars. Glue either a star or one of the strips of stars onto each page, including the one without a photo.

Take the rub on transfers and add a gold star to each page, then add a few words or titles. Take care if the paper you are using is quite textured in case the transfers don’t attach well. If you need to you can retouch them by outlining them with a black pen. When you have put on the transfers you can put some touches of watercolour paint on top of them and around them to brighten them up.

Keep the inside pages of the front and back covers blank. Consider where you will want to place the plain badge on your front cover and then put a layer of white gesso in this area. Dry, then add a touch of white if it doesn’t look sufficiently opaque. Use Watercolours to add some paint to the top section of the front cover, using the same colour scheme as you have inside, then dry again.

Stamp on a text motif in orange and some splashes in pink. Take your temporary stencil and make two squares of text then stamp on some little dots and circles.

Glue down the badge. Cut out a word to make the title then glue it onto the cover so that part of it covers some of the badge. Glue on a little star. Use your watercolours to add a little colour to the badge and the star, then dry.

Add some rub on transfers of stars and text. Use a die cutting machine to cut out a small motif in black cardstock and glue it underneath the title.

Decorate the back cover in a similar fashion to the front, but without the gesso and the badge; just use a black square of text, a band of orange text, some watercolour paint, some rub on transfers and a cut-out in black cardstock.

Next bind the pages of your album together with the two metal rings. Line up all of your pages and your covers together, then centre the pages on the covers. Pierce two holes through the album. These will be close to each other in the centre, one 12cm up from the bottom and one 14 cm up. Both should be 1 cm in from the left. Once you have made your holes attach the metal rings and your album is finished.

Tips

• If you don’t have a screen printing frame you could use individual art screens or get a similar affect with stencils and a large foam paintbrush because screen printing allows you to print patterns with a relatively small quantity of paint, whereas adding patterns with another medium, such as modelling paste can create a thicker more textured layer. You could also work with foam pads, such as Cut N Dry, and inks or paints.

• If you don’t want to, you don’t have print the whole of the pattern on your screen; you can block of sections with masking tape. You could also mix colours directly on your screen.

Note

When you are screen printing you put your colour on one side and then scrape across the screen, transferring the paint through to the other side. Do not leave a thick layer of gouache on the pattern that you are printing. As you work, keep checking that everything is clean and make sure that your page is dry so that you screen stays clean. When you are finished wash your screens and frame with cold water and a soft sponge. It is easiest to leave your screens to dry draped over the edge of the sink or a washing up bowl. If you get an unwanted ooze or dribble of paint on your work you can remove it with a damp soft sponge, because gouache is water soluble.

I only put one photo on each page, but you might decide to put two or three, depending on what you think looks best.