Prepping Pages

Dusty asked in a comment on my last post about what I use to prep pages and I thought I'd answer here in case anyone else wanted to read it.

I'm using the Mead composition books or sometimes an off-brand. I prep the pages with the liquid acrylic paints that come in the small bottles from Wal-mart. I usually get the 44 cent ones, but I like the more expensive one in black because it's shinier.

I usually put some paint down on a pallette. I use wax-paper. Sometimes I apply it right to the page. Then I smear it around with a sponge. I like a fine sponge. I get a whole package of them at Dollar General for a dollar and cut them into small pieces. One of my favorite backgrounds is to paint a border in a color and then put some antique white on the sponge and smear it around in the middle. The color mixes with the white and is great for writing over.

I have found that I can watercolor right over the lighter backgrounds and I've even used dark watercolor shades over a darker background. As for pens, I use gel pens in any brand, Zig caligraphy pens, and I like the new permanent Bic markers. I have also used regular ball point pens, but I don't like them as well. They tend to skip on the acrylic paint.

Since I started using the paint-prepped pages, I have had very little bleed-through. A couple of times my watercolor has bled through the page, but not the pens.