Ranger / Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Spray Play

I received "happy post" today in the form of a 12 Ranger Distress Oxide Sprays that I had ordered from "Art From The Heart" a couple of days ago.

To be honest, I hadn't seen any demonstrations of them being used, so I had no idea what I would be getting until I played with them myself.  I already have the set of Distress Oxide ink pads which I love, so my thinking was I'm likely to love these too.  

I was aware that there was a splatter box that you could purchase, but I thought I would make my own, using an old delivery box which I cut down.  It's not very tidy, but it does the job and I definitely was not going to pay for something I could sort out myself.  This is mine in all its glory... or not!

Possibly in hindsight, the edges should have been higher as I did get some over-spray, but it was easy to clean up so not really an issue.

So down to business.  The bottles have a plastic coating which I attempted to rip off quickly in my excitement to use the product, but I needed scissors.  Note to Ranger:  Maybe perforated plastic would be easier for the customer, but that is just a one-off niggle.  

Once free of plastic, you shake the bottle from side to side to ensure the inks inside fuse.  I quite enjoyed doing this thinking:  bingo wings?  What bingo wings? as I was shaking so vigorously!

This was my first play .  I used Spiced Marmalade, Mermaid Lagoon and Faded Jeans on a white card.  When dry, I splattered some drops of water onto the surface, which made the lighter areas.  I was thinking this would make a good underwater background for a project.

This is my second attempt, this time I thought I would try on black card.  I used Spiced Marmalade and Picked Raspberry.  I unscrewed the top of the inks and sprinkled some droplets onto the surfact to get the larger blotches.

This was my next make.  The photo on the left is when the ink is still wet and the one on the right is how it looks once it is dry.  It gives you an indication of how the colour changes.  For this sample I used Wilted Violet and Mermaid Lagoon.

The photo above again shows the intensity of the colour when wet (on the left) and when dry on the right hand side.  For this play piece I used Cracked Pistachio and Mermaid Lagoon.  I really like the graduation of colour and the speckled bits which will be great to use as an under water project as they look like air bubbles.

I forgot to say, I line my splatter box with kitchen roll.  The overspray onto the kitchen paper looks fab, so I'm saving that and it will likely appear in a future project.

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So in summary of my play session, I like these sprays and I can certainly see me using them to create quick backgrounds.  

Maybe I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to change, but I think I prefer the Oxide and the Distress Ink pads more than the spray, mainly due to having more control where the colour goes, but that is purely my preference.