Cloudy Smudging Technique for Tile Backgrounds

Cloudy Smudging Technique for Tile Backgrounds

Trelina and Skye on Cloudy Smudging background

 

There are a bunch of techniques for creating interesting backgrounds for zentangles and doodles.  Watercolors, distress inks, etc.  Here’s a really cheap and easy way to make a funky background. 
I got the idea from my grade 8 art teacher, it's one of the few things I remember from that class.  Turns out it came to good use many (many, many, many,) years later.

All you need is: 

• A tile or piece of paper
• A cheap pair of scissors
• Cheap pencil crayons (in the video I used crayola, not using my prismacolors for this)
• Tissue

Use the scissors to grate the nib of the pencil crayon onto your tile.  When you have a nice little pile of shavings, use the tissue to color the tile.  I cover my index finger with a good wad of the tissue and use circular motions to cloud up the tile.

You can use the tile right away to tangle or doodle on.

TIP:  My best tip with this method is to use the colors you clouded your tile with to shade and color your final piece.

 

Here’s a finished tile I did with the Trelina pattern and Skye. 

 

Enjoy the video, I hope it gives you some ideas to create!