December Daily: Day 27

Allan took the kids and a couple of their friends to the pool on the twenty-seventh.

I created my own patterned paper for the right page by placing a Studio Calico mask over a piece of cardstock and spritzing with opaque ink.

This is one of my handmade patterned transparencies, which are really easy to make.

You can simply take your mask, lay it onto a clear transparency and color the negative shapes with a marker.

But with this method the marker will bleed underneath the mask leaving a messy pattern. This look is pretty cool and may be perfect for the project you're working on, but, if you want a clean pattern, there's a better way.

To prevent the marker bleed, you simply need to raise your mask off from the surface of the transparency. One good way to do this is with a couple layers of tape. Yes, it is time consuming, but worth it if you want a crisp, clean pattern. And once you've taped your mask, you can leave it taped for future use. I actually learned this little trick back in college from one of my Design instructors - I've used it a lot over the years.

I used a Copic marker (alcohol based ink), but a Sharpie would work well too. Experiment to see what you like. I did a lot of testing to find the right look for me.

A finished transparency. Let me know if you have any questions.

p.s. These are pages from my 2011 December Daily. The "why am I posting them in 2013" can be found in this post. Thanks for stopping by!