There are several crackle products available and art and craft stores. The one I use is by Plaid.

The first step is to paint your page.  You will need two colors for the crackle to show up.  The bottom coat is what will show up through the cracks of the top color.  I painted the first coat black.  I am not precise or patient with anything I do, so I used a heat gun to hurry up the drying process.

When the first coat is completely dry, apply a coat of the crackle medium with a brush.  Put it on fairly thickly.  If you want neat, uniform cracks, apply it evenly. I don’t because I like it to look more natural.  Again, I use a heat gun to hurry up the process.   Dry it until it is tacky, but not completely dry.

When it just feels sticky to the touch, but isn’t wet, apply your second coat of paint.  You can dry this coat with a heat gun, too.

As you dry, you will see the cracks begin to form.

Close up of the cracks

You can use this as a background for gluing paper items, painting or writing.  Keep in mind that the surface is not smooth when you write, though.  You’ll need a pretty substantial marker.

This technique allows you to create a faint, grungy masked design under a painted background.   It is great for journal pages and collage backgrounds.

The first step is to stamp a design on the blank page with a glue stick.

I made my checkerboard stamp out of fun foam.  If you want to make one, save the image below by RIGHT clicking it.  Cut the squares out of one piece of fun foam.  Use rubber cement to glue them in a checkerboard pattern to another piece of fun foam.

Apply the glue thickly to the rubber stamp.   Press the stamp onto your page.  It doesn’t show up since the glue is clear (unless you get one of the glue sticks that goes on in color and dries clear) so you’re going to have just imagine the design as you place the stamp on the page.  But remember it’s sort of a grungy technique so it doesn’t need to be symmetrical or balanced anyway.

Allow the glue to dry, or use a heat gun to speed up the process.  Once it’s dry, paint over the page with acrylic paint.   The areas where you stamped will not absorb the paint.

The checkerboard design in mine shows up white since I applied the stamp to a blank page.  An alternative way is to paint the page first, apply the stamps, then paint again.  This method will show the stamped design in the color you first painted the page.

Have fun!

Joss Paper Transfer

This is another tutorial from the Background Techniques book I wrote.  This one shows how to transfer joss paper onto a page using gesso.

Materials needed:

Joss Paper – available at Oriental stores

Gesso

Brush

This is how it will look after the transfer.  I like the grungy, faded look it has.

1.

Instructions

1.  1. Put a thick layer of gesso on the side of the joss paper that has the image or ink.

2,   2. Before it has time to dry, place it, face down, on the surface you are transferring to.

3.    3. Rub the back of the joss paper with your hand. Rub for a minute or longer to make sure all the ink gets rubbed onto your page.

That’s it!