Brusho Technique with Masks – Bible Art Journaling Challenge Week 37

Hello Everyone! Welcome to week 37 of the Bible Art Journaling Challenge! This week I splashed color EVERYWHERE with something called Brusho. I did a Brusho technique with masks which I’m excited to share with you!

In week 8 of the Bible Art Journaling Challenge, I did a rather wild and invasive Bible art journaling technique in my NASB Note-Taker’s Bible. I wanted to share here what I said about my Bible then, as it really applied again with my Single Column ESV Journaling Bible…

“I really wanted to break my Bible in a bit. Do something creatively with it which would finally make it feel like I wasn’t making another person’s book beautiful. Like, it was too precious to mess up and be real with. I wanted to OWN that book for myself and feel it has finally made home with me.”

I feel like this week, I’ve done the same with this Single Column ESV Journaling Bible. I think you’ll enjoy this as much as I have! It was super fun to push the limits of what is possible in Bible art journaling!

Brusho Crystal Colour

Firstly though, let me explain about Brusho a little bit. Brusho Crystal Colour is essentially a watercolor in powder form. You can add water to it and away you go with regular watercoloring.

BUT… the EXCITING thing about Brusho is not that it is another high-quality watercolor, but what you can do with it because it is in powder form. Here are a few examples from my swatches I was creating. When you sprinkle the Brusho powder onto a wet surface, it almost swims around in a dance.

Often when we get watercolor, it comes all mixed up and ready to use. Because Brusho comes in a powder form of watercolor, the mixing up of individual colors hasn’t fully happened and can be exploited for some seriously fun creative play.

We all likely understand that there are primary colors and when we mix blue and red (primary colors), we get purple, a secondary color. When we mix blue and yellow (primary colors), we get green. Another secondary color.

If you look at the Brusho color “Sea Green”, you’ll find specs of blue and yellow which create a beautiful green when water comes into contact with it. And so the story goes with Brusho colors. The color range is beautiful when mixed fully and stunning when the specs of powder in “individual colors”, are allowed to showcase their various colors within.

I took the time to link below to all the available Brusho colors, so you can see and try out individual ones if you want. The sets come first in the collection. I have the set of 24 colors. What is your favorite color? I’m loving the Sea Green and Violet! Even the black has some beautiful colors in it, which float around and play with the water you add to it.

Click images to view or purchase

Brusho Crystal Colours Set, 24	Brusho Crystal Colours Set, 12	Brusho Crystal Colours Set, 8	Brusho Crystal Colour, Black	Brusho Crystal Colour, Grey	Brusho Crystal Colour, White
Brusho Crystal Colour, Prussian Blue	Brusho Crystal Colour, Ultramarine	Brusho Crystal Colour, Cobalt Blue	Brusho Crystal Colour, Turquoise	Brusho Crystal Colour, Ost Blue	Brusho Crystal Colour, Violet
Brusho Crystal Colour, Purple	Brusho Crystal Colour, Crimson	Brusho Crystal Colour, Brilliant Red	Brusho Crystal Colour, Rose Red	Brusho Crystal Colour, Scarlet	Brusho Crystal Colour, Vermilion
Brusho Crystal Colour, Ost Red	Brusho Crystal Colour, Burnt Sienna	Brusho Crystal Colour, Terracotta	Brusho Crystal Colour, Orange	Brusho Crystal Colour, Dark Brown	Brusho Crystal Colour, Light Brown
Brusho Crystal Colour, Yellow Ochre	Brusho Crystal Colour, Sandstone	Brusho Crystal Colour, Yellow	Brusho Crystal Colour, Lemon	Brusho Crystal Colour, Moss Green	Brusho Crystal Colour, Olive Green
Brusho Crystal Colour, Leaf Green	Brusho Crystal Colour, Sea Green	Brusho Crystal Colour, Emerald Green	Brusho Crystal Colour, Lime Green

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Brusho and other options

I understand there are a few other companies who also sell similar products, but I found Brusho to be the most cost effective for a set, and a set to be more cost effective than individual pots if you intend to get them all eventually anyway.

Brusho Crystal Colors are made by ColourCraft, which is a small company in Northern England. While I think their packaging is less than inspiring, their focus on quality product inside the packaging, seems evident. I am super pleased to recommend Brusho to you. After lots of research (don’t I always?!?), I decided to buy the set of 24 colors because I knew I’d get plenty of use out of them and I’ve loved them so far! They are amazing quality and very vibrant in quality as you’d expect from artist grade paints.

If you don’t have a product like this, but want a similar look to what I’m showing you today, I’d imagine using Dylusions Spray Inks or Distress Spray Stains, would give you a similar look, without the dancing around of watercolor powders which the Brusho gives. I haven’t tried it yet, but you certainly could!

Beginner Brusho advise

If you do buy any Brusho, let me give you a piece of advice. Resist the urge to open the bottles and look at the powder inside. It will get airborne super easily and you’ll have a mess on your hands. While this is watercolor of a sort, it appears to be a little more permanent when it gets out and about.

Use something like a thumb tack or other needle with a handle on it, to prick 3 or 4 holes into the cap of each bottle. It seems like nothing could come out but trust me, the powder will come out in good amounts and you’ll save lots of it that would get wasted otherwise.

Brusho technique with masks

As mentioned previously, for today’s Bible Art Journaling Challenge, I used a Brusho technique with masks. I used 3 Brusho colors for the technique… Sea Green, Turquoise and Ultramarine. You could use any colors I linked above, which mix well together. The Sea Green has a bit of blue specs in it and it worked well moving in to the Turquoise and finally Ultramarine. They are beautiful together in my opinion. The color was crazy vibrant, but given how little I used, I’m sure I’ll still have these same bottles for many years to come!

I’ve said this before and will again today in case you’re not aware, a mask is just the reverse of a stencil. If you had a package with both stencil and mask, the stencil of a tree would give you a tree cut out of the middle so you could color the tree. The mask would be in the shape of the tree and allow you to color around the tree. Both are great! Today I’ve used this Brusho technique with masks, to color around a treble clef mask and worshiping girl mask.

Before you watch the video tutorial, I just want to point out (because I know I’ll get asked!), that I can still read ALL of my Bible text. The artwork is vibrant and deep in color, but is still transparent enough that I can read my text. That is always the goal with my Bible art journaling and today I pushed the boundaries while still achieving my goal.

Brusho is transparent and I’ve stamped with Watering Can Archival Ink, which is a fairly transparent grey color too. You can see a full collection of my supplies below, as always. Enjoy watching the video and then I’ll give you some important tips, to having a successful time with this technique, should you want to try it for yourself!

Please remember, you do not need to use the supplies or techniques I’ve shown you today, to join in to the Bible Art Journaling Challenge. Simply grab what you have and get spending time in the Word! If you create anything with the scripture of the week in an art journal or Bible, you’ve participated in the Bible Art Journaling Challenge! It’s that simple. You can see further below, how to share with the community of us doing this challenge together! I LOVE seeing what you all do!

Tips for the Brusho technique with masks

I try to keep most of my Bible Art Journaling Challenge tutorials, fairly approachable and easy for all to grasp and try out. This Brusho technique with masks is a bit more intermediate because of the amount of water being introduced to thin Bible pages, but you will do great if you follow my pointers here. I hope you’ll try it out!

As always, try out this technique on something before you try it on your Bible. You could try it on a piece of printer paper layered with your page-prep. The paper is the same weight and once you have your page prep on top and dried, you have the same surface your Bible page will have on it. 🙂

If you want to try out the Brusho technique with masks, here are my pointers…

1. Prep your Bible page at least 3 times, perhaps even 4 times. Use thin layers and be sure the gesso or other page prep product is TOTALLY dry, before adding each additional layer. With my usual recommended 2 layers, both layers can reach air to dry properly. With additional layers, the middle one could stay damp and be bad for the Bible long-term. I recommend a heat-gun (from Amazon or Scrapbook.com), to fully dry layers in between, if you’re not prone to patience while creating. 😉 The goal is the create a thick barrier, which requires all the liquid to swim on top of your Bible page, without soaking through it or compromising the paper’s ability to not tear. One thick layer will cause your Bible page to wrinkle and struggle to dry without damaging the paper. Several thin layers, is the key. Get excessive with layering page prep and you’ll have a nice barrier for your art supplies to sit on, without hurting what would have been a rather delicate Bible page. The extra layers will build some durability for the paper and make it withstand pools of liquid sitting on top of it for a little while as you create. Something which is totally impossible otherwise.
2. The reason I used a craft sheet (that brown sheet), behind my Bible page and over my adjacent one, is because it is non-porous. Using just white printer paper, would have resulted in everything soaking through to the adjacent page(s). Be sure to use a non-porous surface under your Bible page and over your adjacent one, to avoid that bleeding. The reason I used the white printer paper at all, is that the craft-sheet is a bit slippery and I wanted to make it hold still as close to the binding of my pages, as possible. It worked great how I did it in the video!
3. I’ve used the Distress Sprayer by Tim Holtz which is great for both fine mist and big droplet spraying. However, you could use any other fine mist spray bottle with water. The key is to get a quick little damp mist of water down for your Brusho to adhere to, as it lands on your Bible page. Then, after shaking on your Brusho color, you could give areas of the page, an additional small mist of water to get the color moving, if it doesn’t appear to be doing anything exciting yet. Don’t over-do the amount of water you add. Try to use less than you expect to need and add more later, if required. As you remember, we have super thin Bible pages and too much water isn’t good for them. Thankfully you’ll have a good few layers of page prep holding your color on top of your paper, which is what we want for this to work.
   
4. I personally would not have done this full page spread, without using Post It Tape along the edges of my Bible page, to keep it from running over to the back of my page. That is my advise. Most tapes will run the risk of ripping the Bible paper when you go to remove it. Especially after they’ve gotten wet or used the heat gun near them. I’d  recommend the Post It Tape if you want a full page of Brusho like this.
5. The flatter your surface, the less likely that color will seep under the masks when you add water. I didn’t mind the look of it leaking a bit under and tracing the outline of the girl with my black XS Faber-Castell Pitt Pen, was a great way to re-introduce her outline and make her the most visible thing my eye is drawn to.
6. As mentioned in my video, when you spray water over your masks (use whatever designs you want, there are no limits!), be sure to spray directly down. You don’t want to spray under your masks by spraying at an angle.
7. Don’t let your color dry on it’s own. Instead, use a paper towel roll (like I showed in the video), to roll over the surface and remove the pools of color. This will help your Bible page not sit with a pool of water on top if it for longer than necessary.
8. Don’t rub the paper towel around your surface, unless you want a different look. Just roll over the surface so everything will basically be firmed into its location without extra liquid to keep moving around with.

I’m sure that sounds like a lot but they are simple and if you read over them and watch my video, you should have a super fun time splashing color around like I did! I will certainly be doing this again!

His Kingdom Come

The ladies over at His Kingdom Come have a fun collection of faithart products in their shopping area, which you might enjoy having a look at. They are all super sweet and have been a joy to get to know in the limited opportunities I’ve had so far.

As mentioned in my video, they sent me a package full of their faithart products to try out. They all seem great quality to me and I’d encourage you to check out what they’ve got. It’s always good to support local and these ladies are creating some fun stuff!I used the God Girls mask today which you can find in my supplies linked below for you.

I particularly like the girl stamps they have, which appear to all fit perfectly in the 2 inch margin of ESV Journaling Bibles! The stencils and masks are fun too. 🙂

Scripture

This week I want to challenge you to create on the whole chapter of Psalm 145. It is a song of praise to God, by King David. Here is a snippet of the chapter in Psalm 145:2-3…

² Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. ³ Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

As I’m still trying to take it easy and this post is getting long, I need to be short on my devotional today. I’m amazed at the intensity of that cold/flu I had and am doing my best to be wise and pace myself until 100% again. I looking forward to getting back up to speed with things as I feel up to it.

The whole chapter of Psalm 145 really stands out to me as a beautiful song of praise to God. King David had such a way with words. The greatness of God is unsearchable. Google has an imense search engine for find things online. Can you even imagine searching the greatness of God?! It is unsearchable. His greatness extends too far to find it all.

King David experienced some incredible difficulties in his life and yet, he always remembered to praise God through it all. His example of choosing to praise God regardless of difficult seasons or amazing times, is something to be observed and followed.

We cannot be the sort of friend to God, who only finds good in Him, when our life looks amazing. We must observe God’s goodness in all times and praise Him through them. He is SO great. Can you count the ways His greatness has impacted your life? 🙂

Sharing

As a side mention, if you feel that you benefit from or enjoy what I do and don’t feel you can or want to be a patron at this time, a simple but very helpful thing you can do for free, is comment on my blog posts and/or share them using the social media share buttons.

Places like Google search, rank my blog better and better, based on how people are interacting with me here. If you say a quick hello on my blog posts and tell others about anything ministering to you here, it helps others find their way to this art ministry and hopefully be blessed in some way by it too. If we partner in spreading the word this way, we can have greater impact together! For me, it is all about helping people encounter Jesus in a more intimate way. Thank you for any help in making that possible!

Join me

As I’ve mentioned, I would love you to try any of the techniques I’ve shared in my process with you today if you’re interested in them. I also want you to feel free to gather inspiration in other places for joining me in this weekly challenge. The goal is to get in to the Word and spend time with God. I’m looking forward to seeing what you art journal in your Bible for this weeks challenge!

You can find answers to most any question you may have about the Bible Art Journaling Challenge over on my Bible Art page found in the top navigation. It also has a full archive! Be sure to head over to our Facebook group and/or Google+ Community, to chat about this weeks Bible Art Journaling Challenge and get started on your own page! Many of you ask if it is okay to share these posts with your friends. Please do! It is a simple way you can partner with me to impact lives.

Today’s Bible art journaling supplies

As promised, here are the supplies I featured in this weeks video which you can click on to view or purchase. I hope it helps you find anything you may want to try out. When you find deals which I’ve searched for and recommended below, I get supported. This has no effect on you and makes a real difference for me. Thank you, I so appreciate your support which helps me provide these free tutorials for you! Where there is just one shop, it’ll lead to Amazon. Where there are two links, you’ll see SB for Scrapbook.com, AZ for Amazon and CB for Christianbook.com

Click images to view or purchase

Brusho Crystal Colours Set, 24	Brusho Crystal Colour, Sea Green	Brusho Crystal Colour, Turquoise	Brusho Crystal Colour, Ultramarine	Pentel Water Brush Assorted Tips, 3	His Kingdom Come Art Supplies
ESV Double Column Journaling Bible, Black	ESV Sng Col Journaling Bible, Imitation Leather, Chestnut	ESV Sng Col Journaling Bible, Imitation Leather, Chestnut	Ranger Craft Sheet	Ranger Craft Sheet	Foam Brush Set, 10
Prima Marketing Art Basics Gesso, Clear, 8.5oz	Prima Marketing Art Basics Gesso, Clear, 8.5oz	Ranger Heat It Craft Tool	Ranger Heat It Craft Tool	Post-it® Tape Roll	Stampendous Fran’s Musical Motif Stamp Set
God Be The Glory Stencils & Masks	Tim Holtz Distress Sprayer	Paper Towels	Faber-Castell Pitt Pen Set, 8 Assorted Nibs	Ranger Archival Ink Pad, Watering Can	Tim Holtz 9-Piece Acrylic Block Set
Tim Holtz 9-Piece Acrylic Block Set	Inkadinkado Mini Cling Stamps, Music Notes	Graphik Line Painter Pens, Palette No.4	Graphik Line Painter Pen, Snow	White Sharpie Paint Pen, Water Based, Fine Point

InLinkz.com

Bibles and supplies for Bible art journaling

There are always those who are new to me that find their way to various blog posts so, I’ll again mention for those who are new and interested… There are several wide-margin Bibles and supplies which I recommend for this art form. I’ve created a linked recommendations collection on my Bible Art Supplies page, to make your starter choices easier. I hope they will help you.

Thanks for joining me today. Please take a moment to share a comment below for us all, about your thoughts, tips, questions, ideas on anything we talked about today. I look forward to hearing from you!

You are loved. x

Scripture is from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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