20/04/2021

Earth - Seth Apter Creative Team

Hei, it's again third week of the month, which means a new series for Seth Apter Creative Team, but this time I'm starting already today, on a Tuesday! "Why?" you might ask. Well, because this time I don't have three post for you but four! Let me tell you why there's four in a bit, but first you can find Seth Apter's site here (link) and more about the Creative team here (link). I've included a list of products to the end of the post with links to Seth's own store.

So, why there's four posts this time instead of the regular three, is because of the subject I was inspired by this time. Not so long ago Seth came out with some wonderful texture pastes. There's four of them - Crackled, Flakey, Beads and Sandy. Can you see where this is heading? I used each paste to create a piece, so there needed to be four. I also wanted the pieces to have a common nominator, something to tie everything together. I could have chose anything, but the number four made me think about elements - earth, fire, air and water - and thus the theme was chosen. I then paired each paste to an element and created a piece with a process video. 

I'm working with the pastes in these pieces for the first time. I did a quick little swatch from each of them to see what they looked like for my pairing process for each element, but otherwise I just jumped head first to the pool and thought to see what I can make the pastes do. I also mixed in some recent newbies to the Izink product line, the Izink Pearly and Diamond. But those are not used in this project, earth needed to be mat and dull. 

As you can read from the picture above, I paired the earth with the Crackled paste. While it could have also been water in its solid form as ice, the first image that came to my head of the texture was the really dry soil when it starts to crackle. 

As the pastes are white on their own, I knew I needed to color the product either by adding something in it or then adding color on top. What I usually do with crackle pastes, is to add color on top so it can soak into the grooves and then I wipe the rest of it off, highlighting those crackles. As I wanted to do the same thing here, I needed to add something to the paste to make it more earthy colored in the first place. I was thinking about a medium which would be highly pigmented, quite thick so it wouldn't change the consistency of the paste too much and which I needed to add just a little to get the whiteness colored. I chose to go with Izink Pigment inks, because they kind of tick every box of the list. While acrylic paints would have been thicker in consistency, I felt like I needed more of them to add the same amount of color I got with a smaller dose of the Pigment ink.

I was really happy to learn that the colorant didn't prevent the crackles from appearing as that was my concern. What I also learned in a later stage of the process, was the fantastic texture the paste gets when you overheat it, make it boil! I know I'm definitely exploring that texture more! 

To highlight that earthy feel I added some Art Stones to the project. They are from the Finnabair product line of Prima Marketing. They are lightweight little stones in various sizes and they added even more texture to the piece. I mixed two sizes of Stones in my make. I also played with some translucent acrylic layers and changed the colors of acrylic paints with the Izink Pigment inks. If you want to see the whole process, please see the video below!


As I say in the video, I ended up adding a focal point to the project - and to each of them, to be honest. I'm challenged with pure abstracts and feel that they are so hard to do and balance out. Adding that symbol there made the process easier. Each of the symbols I add to the pieces corresponds with the element I'm trying to depict. The symbols are made from a triangle shaped jewelry part and a piece of thick cardboard in two cases.

Thank you for stopping by today! Hopefully you'll be back tomorrow for another part of the series - then it's a new paste and element!


Materials from Seth's store:

Robyn McClendon Scripting 1 stencil


Materials: Aladine, PaperArtsy, WOW! Embossing Powder, StencilGirl, Prima Marketing, Sinelli




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