Using Inkylicious Ink Dusters

Hello folks, I would like to introduce you all to today's guest, Shoshi. She is going to show us some hints and tips on how to use one of her favourite tools: the Inkylicious Ink Dusters.

You can use different media with these brushes, but so far I’ve only used Tim Holtz Distress Inks with them. They blend these so absolutely perfectly that I shall never go back to blending tools or home-made blending pads made from Cut and Dry foam. They are so soft that you can blend the smallest amount of ink, gradually building up the intensity of colour so that it’s always under your control, and there’s no hard line between the different colours. Because the brushes are so soft, you can easily distress quite thin paper without any danger of it catching and creasing, as can easily happen with blending tools.

I prepared my card in advance by heat embossing it using rubber stamps and Versamark, and clear embossing powder. I used the following Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Spun Sugar, Dusty Concord, Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot.

Some people use the Ink Dusters straight onto the ink pad, but I find I can see how much is going on and have more control, if I smear the ink pad onto my craft mat first, and take up the ink from there. The Ink Duster is dabbed into the ink and then swirled on a clean bit of craft mat to distribute the ink into the brush.

Be sure to work the ink into the bristles before applying the brush to the card to prevent streaks and unevenness.

Starting with the lightest colour, I worked the ink into the paper starting at the edges, blending towards the centre, using light circular motions, stroking motions inwards from the edge, and finally stippling motions as the ink was used up.

You can add as many colours as you like to get the effect you want. Working over clear embossing, it’s great to see the stamped image emerging as you build up the ink – the embossing acts as a resist and reveals the underlying colour of the card as you work.

Shoshi has a couple of videos on using these brushes that you might like to see. You can find them here.

Thank you for sharing with us Shoshi.