,

Have you tried Distress Oxide on black or craft?

You’ve probably noticed that colors behave or appear differently depending on which paper you use. And when it comes to the Rangers ink pad called Distress Oxide this is particularly the case. Especially on colored paper like craft or black.

Type of project: art journal
Occasion: none
Style: CAS
Techniques used: stenciling, stamping
Decoration: none
Main colour: blue/ turquoise/purple
Media used: distress oxide, black/white pen, white ink
Equipment used: stencil, stamps
Mid-January Tim Holtz released his allegedly last color for the distress line. Since he is fond of the neutrals it was maybe no surprise it turned out to be a new brown shade. But as always we seem to need it! 😄
All the talk in the community about the distress inks made me remember how much I enjoy my Distress oxide ink pads so I opened up my art journal – the one mixing craft pages, black pages and regular white. So fun to play with!
Whereas regular distress ink are a dye ink based product – transparent in nature, the distress oxide is considered to be a hybrid. It contains both pigment ink (which makes it opaque) and dye ink  (it reacts to water for example). The special formula makes it a bit chalky. It’s this feature that make the colors turn out differently on craft or black.
In both art journal pages I kept it simple to let the colors and the stamps really speak for themselves. But look how cool the ink blending appear on craft paper:
You can really see the chalkiness shine through on the stenciled areas. I colored the girl with watercolor pencils to get some similar texture as the Oxides.
On the black page I used colors of the rainbow blending it like a wheel in the background.  Then I sprayed it with water to let it oxidize. Just like with dye ink the water leaves lighter areas but here the chalky character comes through.

When dry I stamped the cool legs around the edges and the sentiment in the middle. Then I splattered son white ink over it.

I really enjoy the magic in making a dark paper become colorful with “just ink”. It’s also interesting to see how different the shade appears on craft and black compared to white. I hope you try it out!!

Posted