Friday, February 27, 2009

UHU glue background

One of the most generous artists I know is Belinda Spewak who had a background technique on her blog this week. I knew I wanted to create a UHU tutorial and Belinda kindly gave me permission to demonstrate her background technique on my blog, perfectly suited for UHU stic Original glue stick. I suggest you check out Belinda's results and mine which are below.
Sheet 1

Sheet 2
Sheet 3

Sheet 4

Although rather time consuming, these are fun to make.
We begin with a substrate (I used card stock), pages from various books, and UHU Original Stic glue.
Tear a page to a convenient size, then place the UHU glue onto the page in about the same size and shape.

Adhere the first torn page, then add another, either below or above the first one.
TIP: Position straight edges of a book page to the straight edges of your substrate.

Leave a portion of the page glue free so you have the option to place the next torn edge either over or under the first one. Be sure to glue both pages where they overlap.

Completely cover the substrate

allowing pieces to overlap the edges.

Using your favorite cutter, trim the edges.

You are now ready for the second part of the technique.
Supplies from left:
Pre-made backgrounds
Inexpensive acrylic paints (alternately you can use fluid acrylics or tube acrylics)
UHU Stic Original glue stick
Brayer

Begin by swiping your finished backgrounds with UHU glue. The nice thing is you can see the purple go on, so you know where you've been.
You don't have to swipe all over, but be sure to cover most of the page. Allow the glue to dry. You'll know when it is dry because the purple glue turns clear.

I have to admit, I'm brayer challenged. In fact, I've never used a brayer before this project, although I picked this one up at a garage sale years ago. Not knowing exactly how a brayer works, I laid down diagonal lines of paint to try to avoid the paint mixing too much. However, I got too much paint the first time, so I used less paint after that.

The glue acts as a resist if you press really hard on the paper with a clean brayer. I had trouble pressing hard enough, but I was able to get some resist, although not as pronounced as Belinda's.
Although my backgrounds didn't turn out like Belinda's, I am still very pleased with them. They will make great backgrounds for ATCs, altered books, or even hand made embellishments.

11 thoughtful remarks:

jgr said...

This is very cool! Thank you for sharing!

Anonymous said...

That's WAY cool! I wanna play with this technique this weekend. (Any reason to make a mess is a good reason!)

Mary said...

What a great way to make a backgorunds for ATC's. Juts think of the possibilities that these lovely backround papers can be used for.Some that come to my mind are for cards,scrap pages and of course altered items. Using the purple UHU glue stick was a good iedea. It is very important to see where the glue is going on the papers. Love the technique that you used. Thank you for sharing it with all of us.

Mary

Anonymous said...

I love this! It is so generous of you to write it all out (and I ALWAYS need pictures, for some reason I just can't follow straight narrative)!
Thanks so much,
Linda

Kathy L said...

These are so fun! I love your colors. They will make great ATCs
Be sure to post some finished work using your backgrounds!

k

HeARTworks said...

I think they look great!

Amy Teets said...

Beautiful!

Linda Crowder said...

I found your blog from Uhu. Thanks for a great tutorial. I have tons of old books and magazines and never thought about a stick glue that would hold up to the moisture in acrylic paints or watercolor for staining. I have always used ink, but I didn't care much for the effect. Thanks for sharing.

~*~Patty Szymkowicz said...

Your background papers look great Elizabeth! I am a real UHU fan and in fact, found your tutorial at that blog....our paths keep crossing....how fun is that!

thank you for inspiring me, I enjoy doing scrap paper backgrounds, but had never used the UHU as a resist!

Anonymous said...

I really liked the tutorial. I thout it was great and enjoyed it. Marion Speels

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