ATC Background Technique: Oil Pastel Resist

purple oil pastel with blue acrylic paint

 I happened upon a new technique for ATC backgrounds using gesso, oil pastels & acrylic paint.

orange oil pastel with purple acrylic paint

 As I make more I'll take photos of each step.

Supplies: ATC (needs to be pretty sturdy stock - junk mail postcards are a good free possibility); Gesso, Oil Pastels, Acrylic Paint, Paper bigger than ATC

Tools: Pallet knife or gift card, paint brush, brayer


1. Cover card with gesso. It should be unevenly spread, leaving ridges and valleys. I generally use either a pallet knife or credit/gift card to spread the gesso on. Let gesso dry completely.


2. Draw over card with oil pastel. Make it sort of uneven with some areas heavier than others.


3. Paint over card with acrylic paint. I use a pretty dry brush and paint unevenly over the whole card. Have the brayer & paper right at hand before you start painting.


4. As soon as you've finished painting, quickly lay the paper over the card & roll the brayer over the entire card. Lift paper to see what's happened. If you like it, you're done. If not you can lay the same paper over again & roll it with the brayer, which may deposit some of the paint from the paper back onto ATC. Or, you can use a clean piece of paper and remove more paint from the ATC. The images on the paper can be interesting as well. And you can reuse the same paper on different ATC's/colors to have layers of contrasting colors.