Creating Translucent Backgrounds

Hello again, this is Rachel stopping in today to share a really neat technique that ended up creating a really gorgeous background!

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This is the type of background that you love so much you almost can’t stand to cover it up! I met a happy medium and created a colorful garden, which still left a lot of the cool texture showing through.

Here’s how I did it…

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In my art journal, I coated the pages with a think layer of gesso and let it dry completely. I used gesso because I’ll be using a lot of sprays and water, so this helps strengthen the paper. Once the gesso was dry I painted over it all in Titanium White acrylic paint. Once the paint was dry I used The Crafters’ Workshop “Rug” stencil in 12×12 and spread TRANSLUCENT texture paste  over the entire stencil until I covered both pages.

The translucent texture paste will take a very very long time to dry. Set it aside and come back in a couple hours. Since I know I’ll be adding sprays, I wanted to use a stencil that had a lot of movement to it and also had nooks in the pattern for the spray ink to settle in to. The “Rug” stencil was great for this technique.

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I held the art journal so it was standing, and sprayed 3 different ink colors at the top of the pages. Then I misted with water to help the ink to run and drip down the pages. I repeated these steps until I had the coverage I desired. (Hold your journal over an old rag while doing this, there will be a lot of ink dripping down!) I let the ink settle and dry for a few minutes, then wiped down the pages with a baby wipe. This exposed more of the white paint that was left beneath the translucent paste.

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It’s just so yummy!!!!

Next came the hard part… covering it! I used some wonderful flower stencils from TCW 513 – Flying Garden to create a little scene. I mixed navy acrylic paint with modeling paste and spread that over the stencil.

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I also added in some darling dragonflies and butterflies from TCW 521 – Whimsy Garden.

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This instantly became a favorite technique of mine to use with my TCW stencils! I have a very strong feeling the next project I create will use this technique 🙂 I hope you give it a try!

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Rachel Kleinman

blog / youtube

The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member

The Crafter’s Workshop Certified Educator

Stencils used:

TCW513 – Flying Garden

TCW521s – Whimsy Garden 6×6

TCW521 – Whimsy Garden 12×12

TCW542 – Rug

6 thoughts on “Creating Translucent Backgrounds

  1. The page is glowing! Question: might clear gesso be similar to translucent texture paste?
    Thanks for the inspiration!

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