Creative Chemistry 102: Distress Paint

Ok, confession: I do not own a single color of Distress PAINT!
I'll get into that in a minute, but first I want to show you what I did do today after being inspired by Day 1 of Creative Chemistry.

I experimented with the cheap craft paint I do have and came up with some interesting results. A couple techniques I didn't even try because I knew it wouldn't work without Distress Paint. I learned a good deal about what I've got and why I may need to invest in a few colors of Distress Paint even though I have paint already!

Distress Paint Marbling: I tried to use cheap craft store acrylic paint, like FolkArt, Apple Barrell, or some store brand. It sort of worked but not really. These two that seemed to work the best had a big streak of Adirondack White Paint Dauber mixed in. It was the only Ranger paint product I had. Because Distress Paint seems to be more fluid (and easier and faster to apply) the results would be superior to what I got. But hey, you don't know if you don't try. So for marbling; I need Distress Paint.

FYI: I did stamp over one of the tags. Black Archival and Distress (peacock feathers). Both dried but the Distress ink did take longer than usual. I did not use a heat gun only let air dry.

 

 

 

 

Colored Crackle:  The flower shapes in the middle of the photo above show the colored crackle result. I had these pieces already crackled from CC101. I used Rock Candy Crackle paint over plain old cardboard packaging.

 

This technique worked fine with my cheap acrylic paint. The paint bascially sits on the top of that crackle layer and it still leaves a matte finish. It didn't want to rub off either which is what I thought might happen. So score one for the Stash!

 

Stamping Resist:  The tags in this picture above were another success for the Stash. I rather figured it would be but it never hurts to be sure. These tags were stamped with cheap yellow acrylic paint and left to dry. I had tried this method before (CC101) but I had used my white Adirondack dauber paint. So I wanted to be sure that any old acrylic paint would work for this. It does.

I added Distress Ink over the top of the paint to see if it would resist and it did. I did need to be sure I used a pretty damp towel to wipe off the ink that covered the paint. Not sure if Distress Paint would be less work to wipe off or not. Cheap paint cleaned off the stamp well with just water.

 

The one thing that I think Distress Paint would have over what I used is that it would be easier to apply to the stamp. That dauber top is a definate plus when applying paint to a stamp as it's not so messy. I used my paint with a touch of water and rubbed it on my stamp with my finger. The lighter the touch, the better the impression. Second generation stamping was advantageous here, too, so I didn't end up with blobs of paint that obscured detail. (another advantage of the fluidity of Distress paint, I suppose)

 

Industrial:  I didn't take photos of this technique as I don't think the photos would have really done it justice. For this technique, I had absolutely NOTHING that the directions called for! But I gave it a shot anyway. With my substitutions, I'm pretty confident that I'd get the same effect.

 

This technique results in a grungy faux metal/riveted look. So here's what I substituted:

foil tape = aluminum foil

texture embossing = crumpled then flattened out

Black Soot Distress Paint = Apple Barrel Black acrylic

 

The result was very similiar. I do not own a die cutting or embossing machine hence the crumpling of the aluminum foil. I tried to draw some rivets and lines into the foil but I don't think it was deep enough to hold any of the paint. When I went to wipe off the paint, it ALL came off.

 

I'm going to call this a score for the Stash as I believe that if I did have a embossed piece of foil, the result would have been the same.

 

 

So it begs the question: will I buy Distress Paint?

Yup, but it's a bit lower on the priority list and I won't feel like I have to have EVERY color. Besides the marbling technique, there were two other things for which Distress Paint seems to be good.

1. It sticks to plastic without a primer. Flippin awesome!

2. The fact that it doesn't lose it's color when you add all that water. When doing the marbling (or the unmentioned Eroded Metallic technique), you need to spritz the paint with water to get it to really move. Cheap acrylic craft paint will do that but you lose the pigment with the water. The water washes it off rather than thinning it out. The fact that Distress Paint keeps its color when watered down is what makes it stand out from other paints.

 

I learned a lot today and look forward to more chemistry tomorrow!

--Wy

"Do or do not; there is no try." --Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back