Easy Aging & Distressing Techniques

Here is a simple example of how you can change the look of a background by simply aging and distressing your background.

Even though I have just started making artist trading cards in the past few months, I have done decorative and tole painting in the past. The same techniques can be used in any craft project where paint is used.

The "before" background has a layer of yellow acrylic paint. I then colored in the corners of the atc with a pink water color pencil. I blended the watercolor pencil with a wet paint brush and let dry. I then glued the vintage lace trim diagonally across the edge of the pink paint. Here is where the aging and distressing comes from. By painting over the entire atc including the lace with white gesso you can age the entire piece. Before the gesso dried completely I wiped some of it off with a dry paper towel allowing some of the background paint to peek through. Once the gesso was dry I then took a pad of sepia ink and using my finger I smeared ink along the outside edge of the atc until I liked the way it looked. I then rubbed some of the ink along the edges of the lace with my finger giving it a "shadow". After doing that the white of the gesso paint on the lace made the lace really stand out. I wanted a more aged look to the lace and to also balance the colors I rubbed some ink on top of the lace giving the piece a more pleasing look to it.

This atc background is for an Artist Trading Card swap on the arttechniquesatcs yahoo group. I will be incorporating a transparency that has been colored with alcohol ink as the focal image. The theme of the swap is "Transparencies & Alcohol Ink". Scroll down for a link to find this great yahoo group.

Thanks for stopping by. Comments are welcome!