Tip-In Swap: Focus on Technique

I have been a member of the Altered Books group on Yahoo for a few years now.  I'm not terribly active on that group, but this month, one of the members offered to host a tip-in swap.  I thought it would be fun to participate.  Each player is asked to make ten pages using a particular technique.

For my tip-ins, I wanted to do a pulled paper technique.  This technique creates a grunge-like background.  I have done it before using a black, gray and silver palette.  The background colors for these pages were inspired by a recent Somerset Studio article that showcased a yummy palette consisting of purple, turquoise and mustard yellow. 

I began by choosing one color as my base color.  After that layer dried, I added splashes of a second color on top.  When that dried, I blended the first color over the second color.  Using the third color, I took bubble wrap and the rim of a paper dixie cup and stamped randomly over the pages for added texture.

Now for the pulled paper.  I took colored newpaper pages and tore them into long strips.  Then I applied gel medium to the painted page and adhered the strips of colored newspaper to the page.  After 1-3 minutes, I began to pull the paper strips off the page.  Some of the paper will stick to the page and some will come off.  If you want more paper to stick, you can leave it on a little while longer. If you want to remove some of the paper that has stuck to the page, you can dampen your finger and simply rub off the excess.

As you can see, I made one set of pages using yellow, another set using purple and a third set using turquoise as the primary color for some variation.  I thought I would like the purple the best, but when everything was said and done, I was drawn most to the turquoise blue pages, so that is the one I kept for myself!