Brusho playtime

First I saturated the cardstock (see below for type) with water before sprinkling colbalt blue, violet and leaf green and just letting them merge together. Hero Arts scroll stamp, Rubbernecker sentiment and Hearflet Creations flowers using the same method to colour after stamping and cutting.

Good Morning Peeps, hope you are OK, I know lots of you have nasty flu bugs so to those of you who do I do hope you are soon feeling much better.

Our internet was down all weekend and is still off more than on at the moment so blogging and commenting has been very much if an when until they get it sorted. So what do you do when you can't while away the time in blogland..............you play..................and on this occasion it was with the Brusho's Santa delivered. I am demoing with them in a couple of weeks so need to get my head round them so it was the prefect opportunity to get messy.

Oh what fun they are as well, no secret that I love lots of colour and anything inky and messy so I was in my element and though I would share a few. I still have lots to learn with them but am fairly happy with how it's going so far. I have experimented with various cardstock to see what gives the best results and to my mind it's Fabriano HP 300lb as it's such a sturdy weight, I find lighter weight card warps and does not give such a nice finish when matted onto the cards which is probably not surprising given the amount of water used to get the full benefit of the powders. I have tried out various methods in my playtime and listed under each photo what I did with the Brushos.

I created the moodly sky by first masking a sun with Pebeo masking fluid and laying a piece of paper over the bottom section before sprinkling cobalt blue (it has to be one of my favs as it gives out such gorgeous hues of blue and purple as it dissipates in the water), purple and orange onto the dry cardstock. Next I spritzed with water and dappled with my finger until I was relatively happy with the spread of powder. The stamps are a mixture of Stampscapes, Inkylicious, Clarity and Art Impression. The ground section of the card was added using Pan Pastels once the sky was dry.

To achieve the graduated look I started by spritzing water liberally over the top section of the card and added violet, then repeated the spritzing twice more coming down the page adding ultramarine and then lime green. All stamps are Inkylicious. I was really pleased to discover that the Brushos bleach out beautifully which is what I did to the raindrops before adding a little white gel pen.

Here I spritzed the top section of the card first and sprinkled on turquoise, then more water and tilted the card around to allow the colour to run downwards to give a sort of rain effect. As you are totally in control you can make the drips go whichever way you want. Then I added a little orange Brosho to the bottom section before stamping with stamps from Indigo Blue, Art Impression and a Penny Black bird in the foreground.

The background on the this one was created by sprinkling scarlet and blue and then instead of water I used iridescent gold Glimmer Mist to activate the powders and scrunched a piece of cling film over the top, left for a few moments on the radiator then removed to reveal a lovely gold faceted effect. It doesn't really show on the full photo so there is a close up below. The stamp is Penny Black.

My final one is a very random background, I sprinkled blue, sea green, white, leaf green and emerald onto the cardstock then liberally spritzed with water and just left the colours to activate. The teasels and sentiment are Sweet Poppy Stencils using glossy black paste.

What I particularly like about working with Brushos is that the colours achieved on each piece are totally unpredictable as each one has other colours within them and vary dependent on the volume of liquid added. For example I used no yellow, orange or pink on the card above yet all of those colours are within the finished piece.

And they are not that expensive compared with some colouring mediums, the individual colours are about £1.40 each (Ken Bromley Art Supplies which is where I also but my Fabriano) and if you buy a box set of either twelve or twenty four it works out even cheaper.

Have a good Tuesday all and as always any questions please do mail me and ask away.