Art Lab Episode 61 // Distressed Modern Art Technique

Hey guys! Welcome back to Art Lab! We all know that distressed clothing items are in right now, but what about distressed art? I got the idea of “distressed art” from an old pair of jeans while cleaning out my closet the other day. (who knew that old jeans could be art inspiration? XD) After a few attempts I finally got it right – and I’m super excited to share it!

Let’s get started with the tutorial!

Let’s first start by choosing our colored pencils color scheme. You can do a select color scheme, or just be random. The colors do seem to mix together a little bit, so you may want to pick colors that will mix together well and won’t turn into mud. 😉 I chose a warm color scheme.

Also, I only tried this with Primsacolor pencils, but I suspect that most other brands would work as long as they weren’t super cheap – but then again I’m not sure.

Start coloring in random sections on your material. (I’m using an ATC.) Click Next on the slideshow to see what my finished one looks like.

Now for the distressing part.

Get a shallow bowl of lukewarm water ready. There doesn’t have to be a ton of water. Just enough to cover the ATC.

Place the ATC in the water and let soak for a minute or two. Don’t let it soak too long though, or to short. Otherwise the “distressing” part won’t work properly. I found that once I was able to rub the ATC with my fingers and the colors mixed together it was ready.

Next, take a cheap white pencil (you could use a table knife as well) and carefully scrape away the paper where you want the distressing to be. If you rub too much then you will have a hole, which could be both a good thing and a bad thing. XD

Once you’re finished, you can transfer the art piece to some paper towels and dry it out a little bit, it’ll take a while for it to completely dry though. Depending if you have holes or not or if (once it dries) the piece is still thin and flimsy, you may have to glue another piece of card-stock underneath the distressed piece.

I also made a blue denim inspired ATC as well! 😀

 

And here’s one final picture of both of them! 🙂

I hope you guys enjoyed this technique and if you made it, I would LOVE to see it! Just email me theartlabblog@gmail.com and I’ll post it on the art gallery page!

Have a wonderful weekend guys!

-Hannah