Second Thursday Tutorial: Playing with Vaseoine/Petroleum Jelly

Today I've collected my favorite uses for Vaseline

(also called petroleum jelly) in my art.

Let's begin as I always do, with a few supplies. What you see is 110 lb card stock, standard 8.5 X 11 inch, an old gift card, white glue, and old phone book pages. 

Since no one uses phone books anymore, they are essentially obsolete and I expect they will go the way of the corrugated sleeves that used to hold light bulbs from touching each other and the cardboard center core found in toilet paper.  These are definitely recyclables.

After spreading your white glue on the card stock using your old gift card, be sure to straighten the phone book pages as best you can.  I suggest starting in the middle and spreading outward.  Try to get rid of as many air bubbles as possible.  You might use a second gift card to do that.

Using a plastic knife or spoon that has been dipped in the petroleum jelly,

place petroleum jelly in various spots on the substrate.  You will see the inexpensive phone book paper turn colors as the petroleum jelly soaks in.

Gather your inexpensive (cheap craft) paints.  These are paints that have less pigment, but will still work fine for this project.  

Using a paint brush (not foam), lay down your first layer of paint.

This is one of those do as I say, not as I do scenarios.  Unlike what I did, allow your first layer to dry, then add more petroleum jelly and a second layer of a different color of paint.

When the second paint layer is dry, remove the petroleum jelly using a baby or all purpose wipe.   The page on the left is yellow on the first layer and green on the second (or top). For the right side, I used green on the first layer and silver for the top layer.

From now on, I will use the following: Left side, green is first layer, navy blue top layer.  Right side, yellow first layer, navy on top.

After petroleum jelly has been removed.

Both left and right: yellow on first layer. red for top.

After petroleum jelly has been removed.

Left, yellow on first layer, green on top.  Right, yellow on bottom layer, red on top.

You can tell the red and yellow are my favorites.  One thing I must explain about the wipes you use.  Although I am a BIG advocate of reusing wipes, you cannot save these.  They are filled with lots and lots of petroleum jelly and paint.  The only place for these is in the trash.  They can't even be recycled.

BTW, had I waited until the first layer of paint in each of the above pages had dried, they would have turned out much better and much different.

Now that we've used petroleum jelly as a resist, let's try a different technique.

Grab your colored pencils.  Not the watercolor pencils, just the ones you use for whatever you use them for.  Sorry folks, I'm not a colored pencil person, so this was not an easy, fun, or relaxing job for me.

I decided to not use the metallic pencils, instead choosing colors from the Pedigree and Sanford.  I have others, but they have never been sharpened.

Let's begin by coloring the brown basket.  I even pressed hard so the color would show well.

But wait!  This is a tutorial about petroleum jelly, not colored pencils.  It was time to dip the pencil in the jelly.

Look at the incredible difference in the intensity of the brown color.

It's like I punched the colored pencil up a notch and made it so much brighter.

Next, it was time to color the rest of the image I printed using my laser printer.  The Sanford pencils were the best, but the Pedigree provided more options.

Because the bunny's Easter outfit has polka dots, I'm sharing it with my friends at Moo-Mania and More.  Even though I personally didn't have fun coloring this, the cute little bunny looks like s/he is having fun.  Therefore, I'm joining Wendy from Wendy's Art and Craft Journal who is our host this month at Art Journal Journey.

As I was finishing this page, I realized I had smeared the pencils with my hand as I turned the page to better color the images.

I even did it in the face area, too.

It dawned on me I should have found a way to keep the page from smearing.

By taking a close-up, I was able to remove/crop much of my mess I created.

You can see some of the pencils I used.  They were all brand new when I started this coloring fiasco.

That leads us to a way we can keep from smearing our pages.  Once again, we call on petroleum jelly.  I found this technique on the internet, but had never heard of Micro glaze, so had to go to the big wide web to find the answer. 

Microglaze:
Waterproofs your envelopes without spraying; apply over acrylic medium in altered books to keep pages from sticking together. Rub a small dab thinly over dry ink, watercolor, gouache, delicate papers, rubber stamped images, recipe cards or anything else you want to give a non-toxic, invisible protective coating. Paper will resist dirt, stains, spills and smearing.  It's the perfect water resistant sealer for craft projects.

I found the above at the JudiKins site.  You can look the link up yourself, if you're interested, because I'm not getting paid to tout their products.

The following I found on the Ranger web site:

• Micro glaze is an all-purpose paper protective cream wax coating for paper and art
• Apply this glaze sparingly over artwork for a smudge resistant and waterproof finish
• Repels water from inkjet photos watercolors and stamped cards
• Can be buffed to a gloss and acid free
• Available in 1 fluid-ounce jar of micro glaze 

If you want to plop down about $8.00 (USD) for 1 fluid ounce, go for it.

Or, you can make it yourself for pennies, pence, or .08 ish euros.

Start with a bit of petroleum jelly.  What I have here is enough for a lifetime.

Add about a teaspoon of isopropyl alcohol.  I'm not sure you need 91%, but it's all I have, so that's what I used.  Mix, mix, mix.  Mix some more. 

Mix until the substance turns white.  Can you see the difference in the colors of the petroleum jelly and the faux micro glaze?

My art friend Kathy has a great inkjet printer with colored ink.  Both my inkjet and laser printers have only black ink.  Unfortunately, I stuffed the gypsy images into a file and bent them when I did.

I decided to see if my homemade micro glaze would actually work,

so I cut images from both pages.

Before I could even start, I accidentally dropped water on one of the images.  Here you can see where I added the micro glaze to the top of the image.

It was time to test this product.

First, I rubbed off the excess micro glaze using a paper/kitchen towel, then brushed on some water. What surprised me was not only did it protect the images, it made them stiffer and stronger, too.  It's really, really obvious which got the water and which didn't.  That image is NOT staged, either.

Now it was time to see if it worked on the other image.  As I showed in the photo, the micro glaze is anywhere above the line, while there is no micro glaze in the bottom of the image.

After I wiped the excess glaze off the paper and buffed it a bit, I added water to the entire piece.

Wow!  This one worked even better than the first image.

You can see the part that is still wet and the part that is completely dry.  Note the water droplet in the eye.

When I moved the image, the droplet because a tear!  Somehow I found that appropriate.

And finally, a way you supposedly can make a cheap VersaMark replacement.

Before I purchased VersaMark for last month's tutorial, I checked the internet to see if I could make it.  Once I purchased the VersaMark, I didn't bother trying it, but the "recipe" can be found here.  Be aware, the link to the recipe she provided doesn't work, so check her recipe at your own discretion.  She indicated you need one teaspoon (tsp) or 5 ml petroleum jelly, an 1/8 cap of alcohol (no strength indicated), and an 1/8 cap of vegetable oil.  She used Mazola, but all I have are Canola and Sunflower.  Are the caps the same size, you ask?  I know that was my question.  Although it appeared her recipe worked, she was contacted by someone at JudiKins who suggested using glycerin and a bit of water to make clear embossing ink.  I can't verify any of this, so you are on your own if you decide to make any part of the faux VersaMark recipes she shared.

I can, on the other hand, recommend petroleum jelly for resists (specifically the peeling paint technique), enhancing the colors of your colored pencils, and making a cheap replacement for micro glaze.

This is Day 11 of 22, and for this month's Second Thursday tutorial, I recycled eight outdated phone book pages.  I also created a journal page that was worthy of sharing with Moo-Mania and More, as well as Art Journal Journey.

Once this post goes live, you will be able to access it anytime on my Tutorials page.  Thanks so much for joining me today.  Your visits mean the world to me, even though I have limited time to respond at the moment.