Using Your Smooch: Part 5, Inkblots

As I played around with my Smooch, I remembered how interesting Rorschach-style things can happen when you fold wet, painted paper. Shimmery, Smoochy Rorschach tests! What a concept!

So here's what I did:

1. Take a half piece of regular heavy white card stock or watercolor paper. I used PTI's white card stock in this example.
2. Score a fold in the middle, and fold it, then opened it on a waterproof surface. I used my cutting mat, which is easy to clean.
3. Paint one side of the inside of the folded paper with plain water until it's soppy wet, and then quickly add watered-down Smooch with an eyedropper on the saturated side of the paper.
4. Press the dry half of the paper down onto the wet and rub gently over the whole piece with your fingers or a bone folder. Inky water will ooze out the sides. Do not be alarmed.
5. Open the paper, and see what happened!

The more water you use, the more colors blend and flow. I used lime and dark green Smooch, and the lime ink seemed to sort of separate into lime and yellow, which really added a lot of interest here.  I think it would become a muddy mess if you used more than three colors, though. And remember that complementary colors (those opposite on the color wheel, like red and green or yellow and purple) combine to make brown.

If you tilt your head to the right and you have a dirty anatomically-inclined mind, you might see a uterus in this Rorschach image. Or not. Maybe I'm just weird.

Anyway, I made a whole bunch of cards using this 5.5" x 8.5" piece of shimmery yellow-green paper. At first, I used relatively larger pieces, so let me share those three cards today.

This first card allowed me to use a couple of giant blingy stickers to anchor the strip. I like how the crisp, angular lines of the "ribbon" of color are softened by the blended colors and large round shapes of the bling.

The largest piece of background plays up the wonderful drippy lines that look like some surrealistic rain storm. Did you know that the color green symbolizes hope? That made me reach for this sentiment from CASual Friday's Breathe set.

Of course, some war poet from WWI turned green's symbolism on its side when he wrote about the green glow of mustard gas in the trenches. Not very hopeful.

But I digress.

Finally, I wanted to do something interesting with this strip and thought cutting a free-form curve might do the trick. After affixing the two pieces to the card, I reached for a sentiment set from Clearly Besotted that has LOTS of sentiments, and realized that the division between the two pieces might perfectly represent the feelings of separation caused by loss of a loved one. For Christians, the idea is that we're separated from our loved ones only until we rejoin them in heaven, at which time things all fit perfectly back together again.

And there you have my first three cards with this particular technique. The remaining pieces were used in much smaller doses, and I think the results are superbly LateBlossom style. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow and Friday to see those.

I'm such a tease!

Substitution Tip: You could really use almost any paint or dye-based re-inker for this technique, including something like Glimmer Mist, although don't spray it...use the eyedropper to get lots of color in each squirt. Little dots of sprayed color will not spread like big, wet globs will. Just remember that the more water, the better, so don't be stingy, and don't use too many colors at one time.