Split Cakes

Metina- That is Rebecca Tonkovich's split cake. She was teaching and selling them at La Fete! Silly Farm is getting ready to market and sell them!!! They were a huge hit and people were "jamming" them and making everything with them.... fish, dragons, mermaids, of course flowers, roses and peacocks. I bought 2 of her prototype splits while I was there... very versatile and time saving!!!!

Coming from other art techniques & mediums, the first thing I did was make split cakes for dimension in faces & for florals. In my little Rainbow kit I created splits of regular/sparkle snaz colors, then rainbow cakes in my box for brushwork. Metina's photo of a box was my inspiration for that one as I had two packages of three of boxes from the dollar store and made use of them after seeing her photo of split cakes in the small sectioned box.
I prefer to use turquoise instead of green in my rainbow cakes & gold next to yellow for pop. I love to use the combinations in one inch sections of the box for one stroke Princess crowns, too, with most impressive results! When I finally get them, Sparkle & Electric snaz colors will make great rainbow cakes & combinations. I would prefer to have my rainbow colors in a sponged sized box instead of a cake but thats all I had to put the colors in for sponging.
I uploaded a few more rainbow design photos on my site.
Happy Painting,
Susan
Fantasy Faces For You!
www.SusanLeeBillings.com

I've had my little one stroke pots for years... have to admit to not using them a huge lot, but the are very useful for small floral designs. Will have to get more adventurous obviously.

The double loaded brush using split cakes adds lots of dimention to the faces, so its not just for florals ; ) Once you get used to using the double loaded brush, sponge, etc you will love the results & the speed!
I used a double loaded 1" sponge brush with the green dragon & Ogre masks on my site. I dont know how to load an image here yet or I would post em here.
Cheers,
Susan

I did a mural in my bathroom at our old house using onestroke - it was sunflowers!!

With face painting I have so many designs out there for the kids to choose from already that I am slow to pick up "new" stuff - I do change and add continually, just the favourites don't change a huge lot.

I double load my sponges ALL the time so I guess I am doing it with sponges!!

Susan,

How do I get to your photos you mention above? When I click on your gallery, I don't really know where to go from there. Thanks!

Which snaz sparkles do you make rainbows out of? I made one with the primary sparkles and the rainbow was very pale. I had such high hopes. Are you using more of the pinks and tourquios(spelling)

I made a mini rainbow out of my sample sparkle kit and I was disappointed with it also... very muted... it didn't really pop.

What a great video. I have been wanting to learn how to double load a brush like that.

I love those litte split pots you have. I think I might have to make some of those.

Just find something that is more shallow. A pill case might be better. What I used is way to deep to be functional. Make sure what ever you use is accessible for both sponges and brushes.

Metina,
Click on my Fantasy Faces album and look at the green dragon & Orange Ogre masks - they were done with double loaded sponge brushes, just another way one stroke is not just for flowers!
And it saves time from going back for other colors for highlights & shading, too!
Hope this helps,
Susan

Sherry,
I used gold next to yellow and sparkling orange next to that for sparkling pop to my "Rainbow" cake. I usually use the sparkling colors for accent in this case.
Sparkles are too sheer to be used by themselves but I did put sparkling purple next to regular purple for a bit of sparkle in the darkest part of the cake.
If you look at my girl rainbow tiger you will see how dominant the regular red is next to sparkling orange but the stripe of regular yellow carries the sheer sparkling orange as well as the gold. And you can see a bit of sparkle in the purple on the forehead. It is subtle but as she turns her face slightly the sparkle definatly shows! I got a kit of sparkles and put them next to the regular colors, split style, to give regulars a bit of sparkle.

Susan,

If you get a moment, it might be easier to post the images you are referring to in your message. I saw several dragons and not one labled Orange Ogre. I am sure I could make sense of it all, if I took more time, but who has extra! LOL

Thanks for all your input. I can't wait to see your entries in the April Challenge!

There is only one green dragon mask - how do i upload photos here????

I've not tried split or rainbow cakes yet... I'm a little scared to try making my own because I'd probably make a mess of it Guess I'd better get my tail in gear if I'm going to participate in this month's challenge...

I had a dayglo rainbow cake from Silly Farm that I loved but I decided to make my own to put more colours in it. I haven't had much of a go with it but it looks good.

Savvy - you can paint the different colors on your sponge for a split cake effect. But - don't be afraid to use a butter knife and take a few slices (or use the ends of an almost gone cake for experimentation!!! Take an empty mint tin or gum tin or eyeshadow or lipgloss container. (check walmart or dollar store if you don't have any empties and scoop out the stuff in them to place your premium creation/inspiration in!) Some people are neat and cut perfectly - others like to get their hands dirty and treat it like play-doh!

I did not love the effects of a Snaz split cake. Even silly farm uses mostly kryolan and diamond fx/wolfe in most of theirs. I experimented with each brand of left over paint I had. Wolfe - bright and brilliant, Paradise - good coverage and color, Snaz - watery, not popping!

I am so EXCITED to see the results of the split cake challenge!!!!

Using a butter knife is good, but an exacto knife or razor blade gets better results. But, be careful, they are sharp!

Steak knife... Heinkel to be precise!

I found the Snaz made rainbow worked ok... they've stopped making them though due to batch tracking problems and FDA regulations. Not sure if other companies will run into the same issues - depends on their methods of manufacture I guess.

Making my own is no biggee... just chop and smoosh... I keep all empty containers and since I empty my working paints into the Jumbo palettes I have lots and lots!!

Snaz cakes have worked great for me, though of course they don't "pop" nearly as well as the wolf neons. They do blend better though. Here's a design inspired by Rebecca, the split cake queen, using a homemade split cake that consisted of pale green, teal and royal blue.

I have been looking at a lot of her photos to figure out some of the colors in the cakes.

Here is a link to some photos. Looks like she has upwards of 5-6 colors in this cakes. Pretty darn cool!

http://artybrushstrokes.smugmug.com/gallery/5450280_ARCoM#333200995_68Lov

Who pictures are these? They are amazing I love the cat.

Wow....I love these! They are so colorful!

Rebecca Tonkovich - Arty Brushstrokes . Her stuff is going to be available at Silly Farm any time now. The DVD just released I think along with Mark Reid's Boy Designs one. Rebecca has taken off from the one stroke concept that Donna Dewberry made famous.... designed a product and how to video to offer us face and body painters. She is a very sweet and artistic soft spoken person! I enjoyed meeting her at LaFete! I am still trying to perfect that rose!!!!!!

Yeah. That rose isn't as easy as they make it look. I always start the second stroke to far to the left and it kills the whole rose effect. Practice, practice I guess.

Soooo many books and videos..and so little time! I need chocolate!