I Tried it: Polka Dot Stars Background

I tried it (modified) and here are my results: This evening I was on YouTube looking for a video on art journaling backgrounds and ended up watching this video. The woman I believe her name is Terri from PringleHillStudio was so easy to follow and did a great job of explaining what she was doing. Although I didn't use acrylic paint I used crayons instead.

I did end up ordering the Crayola Twistables Slick Stiks she used in addition to her Gelatos. They are very much like Gelatos but cheaper they come in a 5 or 12 pack and I ordered 12 for 9.98 from Amazon they will be here Tuesday along with my new stencil cutter!

Here's my background you will notice it's not nearly as vibrant and doesn't do hers justice as it slightly resembles the one she made. I will go back and do it in acrylic because it is a terrific background to use. It was late and sometimes it's hard for me to get around. Plus I couldn't find my paint palette thing to hold my paint. It was very good practice and I feel after watching the video a couple times and doing it I can go back and do it over again in different colors. I also have to admit I was watching the new James Bond movie at the same time. I still prefer Peirce Brosnan to Daniel Craig but that is for another post.

I used regular crayons in green, yellow, orange and lavender (purple no lavender out of 64 colors) the colors she suggested. I used a green marker to go around the circles and black marker for the crosses and a orange Sharpie for the dots. My new white paint pen I bought from Pat Catan's is defective so I used white paint and filled in the circles with the lines and I hollowed out a pencil eraser to make the small circles. I couldn't find anything close by to make the bigger circles with so I painted them with the white paint too. I also used a blue pencil to outline the circles, she suggests a watercolor pencil if you have one, I didn't so I used the nearest item I had to it.

Of course hers is much more vibrant and blended since she used paint and gelatos but it shows you what can be done with other mediums. The reason there is two is she was recreating the one on the left. She shows the actual mixed media page she made the background for. It was very lovely. I could use mine as a background perhaps for an art journal page but I think I will just leave it alone and use it as a reference. Last night I had fun making backgrounds with my Gelli plate, I still need to get the hang of that.

Here is the link to her YouTube video. If you need ideas for backgrounds give it a try. It looks hard to do but it isn't at all. Her video was just under 26 minutes so in less than that you could make a gorgeous background that looks like you spent a lot of time on. It will be our little secret! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kC2h7vnbi4

I hope this post helped. If you are on a limited budget and you see a background or technique you like on YouTube consider using your least expensive means of reproducing it first. One, it is great practice and two, you can see if you really like it or can follow the tutorial before you waste your time or more expensive materials. I knew after watching this video I wanted to try it, I just choose to do it in crayon and not acrylic.

Naturally as in this case the end result will not be the exactly the same but you will have a good idea if you want to pursue the technique further. Just a thought.