Hi friends! It’s Cristin here, and I have a fun tutorial to share with you today. I’m using a fun, new devotional set by Abigail Clone called At a Crossroads. I pulled the color scheme for the page from a few of the set’s elements to create a color gradient with acrylic paint.
Abigail’s devotional focuses on waiting patiently for the Lord and seeking Him when we are facing decision crossroads in our lives. As I reflected on Psalm 27, I realize that waiting is not a favorite thing for a lot of us. Waiting for test results (hard!), waiting for the doctor, waiting in line at the bank…all of these things are not fun. When I was a kid, I got allergy shots for nine years. I had such severe allergic reactions that after every shot, my arms would get hot and itchy, and swell up into giant wheels, scaring the nurses. My small town doctors office banned me from getting shots there because of this. So every week, I drove into the city to get my shots (hospital adjacent). The nurses made me sit around, sometimes for hours afterwards, measuring my arms with centimeter rulers and making sure everything was ok.
Now, though, waiting brings a sense of joy inside me. Maybe it’s the millions of hours I’ve had to wait around. Waiting patiently for the Lord doesn’t mean waiting alone in a doctor’s office full of coughing kids while He’s off doing something important. Because we are always with Him, nothing can separate us from His love. Deep, abiding joy comes when we make time, when we wait for the Lord. “My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming.'” (v. 8)
Color Gradient Tutorial
For today’s technique, I’d like to show you a few step-by-step photos to illustrate how I created an ombré fade technique in my margin. The Psalms are a fun place to try this, because the margins are nice and big. Let’s start with a few colors of acrylic paint. It doesn’t matter what brand, although less expensive paints may work better because they contain more water. Thus, they will be workable, longer. If the paint dries too quickly, this technique will be more difficult. The paint needs to keep a wet surface, so work quickly and do the entire margin at one time. The colors on this page will start with a yellow and shift to a peachy-pink.
Apply the Paint
To start, use a bible mat under your page and apply a layer of white acrylic paint on the left side of the margin, and immediately apply the gold color right on top, leaving white on the left side. Blend the colors using an up and down brush movement, moving perpendicular to the lines of text. The extra white on the left will allow a lighter shade of yellow to develop as you stretch the paint towards the text and moving away.
Next, switch brushes (if you want) and apply the light peach color right next to the yellow. Blend up and down, slowly grabbing the wet edge of the yellow color. Don’t go too far into the yellow, just enough to blend the two colors where they meet.
Do the same with the darker shade of peachy-pink. I added too much of the darker color and lost the middle color, so I re-added more of the peach. The below picture shows my page before I added more of the in-between color.
After that, I touched up the yellow color by adding more white to the left side, to create a more gradual color shift in the yellow hue. If any color gets lost a bit, just add a little more on top and keep blending the wet edges together.
Add Paint Splotches
There. It’s just about done. However, after all that, I thought it needed some paint splotches. I mixed a few drops of water into a little white paint, and tapped on my paintbrush to splash paint droplets onto the margin. You can see below how it turned out. Oops, there’s a big blob on the page. I’ll cover it with something cute!
After it all dried, I added the cute Volkswagen bug, license plate, and daisies to the page. My journaling went on a grid tag. Thanks for joining me here today, friends. If you make a color gradient margin, I’d love to see it! Tag me on Instagram (@plyswthscissors) so I can see!!
Additional Supplies: Fashion Angels Smelly Jelly Scented Highlighter
