Custom Shimmer Backgrounds

Discover the magic of shimmering Luminarte Primary Elements powders and make gorgeous backgrounds for your mixed media and paper crafting projects! This video from Marti Wills shows you how easy it is to create custom colors that shimmer, which can be used for various projects.

Materials:

• Luminarte Primary Elements artist pigment powders
• Gum Arabic (powder or liquid)
• Cardstock or watercolor paper
• Paintbrush
• Water
• Saran wrap
• Mister of water
• Liquitex Glazing Medium
• Foam stamps (like Claudine Hellmuth stamps)
   

Video:

Instructions:

Luminarte Primary Elements are a powdered form of pigment color with shimmering mica added. Powdered pigment is the basis of all sorts of forms of paint and colorants. The advantage of using them this way is that you buy the colors once and then you have loads of options of what type of paint you make by what medium you mix them into. A medium is simply the base of your paint - gum arabic can be used with water for a watercolor or you can mix them with the many other forms of mediums by Golden, Liquitex and others to form a variety of paints for a variety of uses and surfaces.

1. Place an equal amount of Primary Elements powder and Gum Arabic onto your craft sheet or plastic paint palette - you only need a SMALL amount to make a good amount of paint. Dip your brush in water and add it to your powder to form a watery wash of paint.
    
2. Cut your cardstock to the size you want and cover it quickly with 2-3 colors of the watery paint washes. When it is covered, mist with water and then lay a wrinkled piece of Saran Wrap on top and set aside to dry.
    
3. Mix equal parts Primary Elements powder and Liquitex Glazing Medium to make a paint. Cover a piece of cardstock with the paint and let it dry.
    
4. Mix a small amount of paint using either water and gum arabic or more glazing medium and use the foam stamps to stamp a random design on the cardstock.