Getting all 'painty'...

...and loving it!   I signed up for Claudine Hellmuth's online class and yesterday I started working through the 'lessons'.  The classes are about paint and mixed media and I'm really enjoying it - revisiting techniques that I'd forgotten about or hadn't used before... and getting myself and the surrounding areas covered in paint.. even Bertie(cat) is sporting a smudge of blue paint but I'm really not sure how that happened....

Aaaanyhoo for the class we're building up a samples book and I'm making mine out of the Papermania chipboard book I showed a few posts ago (go here).. It was v cheap and I didn't know how it would take paint etc and how much it might warp..
I said I'd let you know how the albums fared and so ... drum roll please ... here are the findings of my 'not-very-scientific-paint/chipboard' experiment...

exhibit a: acrylic paint applied to ONE side:

Look how lovely and flat they still are.. normally with chipboard I'd expect to need to paint both sides to balance it up and keep it 'flat' (I think the not warping is helped by the kraft paper cover-layer that the boards have- maybe stops the moisture from soaking into the boards??)

exhibit b: paint, gesso, embossing powders, more paint (in several layers when it didn't go right the first time..):

Not too bad! I think they'll be even flatter once I've put them under something heavy for a few hours...

So I am happy to report (straightening out white lab coat and consulting clipboard) that the Papermania chipboard albums are well worth their £3.00 price tag!

There ends todays crafting lesson.