I often get asked about what kind of acrylic paint I use. My answer: the cheap stuff. Those who have taken classes with me know that I like to tease the *paint snobs* who only use Golden. Don't get me wrong, that stuff is wonderful but for journaling purposes I have found it makes me crabby. My pages stick to each other. Nothing is more frustrating than to see a student work really hard on a great spread then suffer heartbreak when the pages stick together. Give me the cheap stuff. In my opinion, you can be more reckless and smather surfcaes with a abandon when you are working with less precious materials. Golden (and other pricier brands) are lovely and appropriate for use in finer art but when you are playing around on pages I say go cheap.
Even the gesso I use is cheap – student grade, from Pearl. $4.99 a quart.
I've also been asked about the scraping. Similar to *dirty brushing*, is *dirty scraping*. I covered some brushing effects in Crusade No. 29 where I point out that using two colors of paint on a brush makes for a more interesting surface coverage than a single color. That's what I call dirty brushing. The same can be done with scraping. Pour out some gesso and acrylic colors onto a paper plate. Dip your old credit card or scraping device into several colors and drag across the surface. Be light handed and random. Dip and scrape. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Let dry. Do some more. As your surface gets built up with paint you'll see some terrific textures emerge.
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