Hi everyone!
Welcome to another Playdate Thursday at Flying Unicorn! For this week's PDT, I thought I would share how I like to play around with Pan Pastels.
I like using Pan Pastels for art journaling. If you like to paint or color, then you will love the advantages of Pan Pastels. They are blendable, erasable and very easy to use. The Starter Sets and Trays come with these awesome tools that are a must for easy application and I highly recommend using them.
For this art journal page, all the colors you see are from using only Pan Pastels.
Let's go thru a step by step process of how it was made.
What you will need:
Pan Pastels
Tools/Sponges/Q-tips/Make up sponges work also
Veramark Clear Embossing Ink/ or any other brand is fine too
Stamps of your choosing
1. For the flowers, I used a Tim Holtz die and got them ready to color
2. Using my sponge tip applicator, I colored the petals. The great thing about the sponge tips is they are easy to switch to both sides while working.
3. To form petals, Just bend using your fingers.
4. Dipping my sponge tip into the red, I can add some 'depth' to my yellow flowers. Another thing I love about Pan Pastels, is there is no contamination when you are using different colors. I can go from blue to green, to red and yellow without contaminating the colors. Although I try to keep the sponges in the same color family.
5. For my background, I first applied Clear Gesso on my paper. I found the colors stood out better..but that is just me. Using the new Prima Pin Wheel Petal Stencil. I chose to use it straight onto the paper instead of making leaves and then cutting them out. I used one of the applicators to apply the green first. I then added in some blue and blended. (Eyeshadow applicators work too!)
For my next step, I covered my leaves with some cut out paper, as I didn't want to stamp over them.
6. Using Versamark or any other clear embossing ink, cover your stamp. When ready, stamp onto your page. The Pan Pastels will act like a resist to the Versamark..or vice versa and you can then color your image.
Careful not to get any Pastel where you won't want it. I worked around the edges of my leaves and colored her an orange-red. You can do this lightly or heavy, but I suggest starting out light and working your way up to get the tone you want.
7. I then used the yellow to finish out the background and then did another light coat of orange/red. Pan Pastels blend really nice.
I thought the page needed more blending so I used a make up sponge to blend more of the colors together.
Another fun thing about Pan Pastels is you can color like you would using colored pencils or crayons. I dipped the tip of my applicator in red and started coloring her hair. I did her dress in the blue.
8. Using the Versamark again, I used a flower stamp, turned it upside down and stamped along the top edge to make it look more like vines/hanging flowers. Using the green Pan Pastel and a small tip applicator I colored it in.
9. I stamped some Versamark on the word stamps, and did the same technique using a Q-tip. Works nicely with smaller areas!!
One more thing that I really like..and there are many..is that once the Pan Pastels are on..they are on. They stay put. It's like paint in a dry cake like pan. I love it. Now you can seal Pan Pastels by spraying with a matte finish spray, but I don't. I have never needed to. But I suppose if you're working with other mixed media materials, you may want to do that.
I hope you give Pan Pastels a try! They really are FUN!!! Do some trial techniques on scratch paper before you begin so you can get the feel of the tools, how it covers..etc.
Happy Creating!