Book Study - Embossing

 On NGS group, we're doing a study of Darlene Olivia McElroy & Sandra Duran Wilson's book "Surface Treatment workshop" This week we're looking at the section "Embossing".  I've done some of these techniques before: Embossing with Objects is done with matte gel and objects, Acrylic Molding Paste with Pressed Shapes uses acrylic molding paste and objects, and Chris' Mini Memory was made with acrylic molding paste and a stamp.

So today I wanted to try a few different ways of doing this technique.

First I tried the basic technique over a previous done piece. I did a thin coat of sot gel (gloss) over an extreme masking ATC and let it dry slightly. The authors state that if the gel is too dry it won't emboss, but if it is too wet, the texture will appear as a sticky lines.

 Press textured object (I used package material) into the medium and gently pull off to reveal the texture, let dry.

After lightly sanding the gel, I painted over the surface with a wash of blue acrylic paint and water.

Then I tried blotting off the wash from the raised surface. The texture is very subtle.

Next I tried another technique mentioned in the book. I painted my surface (canvas sheet) with red acrylic paint and covered with a thin layer of light molding paste over the surface.

 Pressed objects into the wet light molding paste, this removes the molding paste and reveals the background. Let dry.

When dry, I colored the surface by using water thinned q. nickel azo gold acrylic paint with my finger and let dry.

You could color the molding paste before spreading it on the surface if you only want the molding paste colored and not the entire surface. Be careful to use only a little paint, so you don't alter the consistency of the molding paste.

The final technique that I tried (there are still more variations listed in the book that I didn't try), was to create an aged look by layering, painting and sanding.  I had watercolor paper painted with purple acrylic paint and let dry. Made a colored gel by mixing Lumiere bronze acrylic paint with gloss gel medium and covering the surface. On this one I had a thick application of the paint/gel mixture. Let dry slightly.

 Used a rubber stamp to press into the paint/gel mixture and gently removed (make sure to wash acrylic paint/gel medium off stamp right away) and let dry. (You can stop here if you want the shiny surface)

 Sand surface.

I decided to use a wash of q. nickel azo gold over the exposed white surface and the edges.

 I did some variations of this technique. The one on the left is the above sample. The middle on is the using the same stamp but with a lighter application of the paint/gel mixture and heavier pressure of the rubber stamp on a blue background. The one on the right is the using a bolder stamp over a blue background.

 Lots of possibilities to create surface textures with gel mediums and molding pastes.