Water colouring with Best Thougths

For my next card making class I decided to give everyone a break from Christmas and ask for requests. So on Monday we will be doing some water colouring techniques using a lovely hostess stamp set called Best Thoughts.

These are 2 samples from the class.

It is a really fun and relaxing way to make a quick card (and look a bit arty along the way!).

This card fold is called an Offset Gate Fold. Instructions are at the end of this post.

I have a few tips for you but remember this is just a suggested way of colouring that works for me. It is a personal thing and you will develop a style that works for you. Some people reverse the order – i.e. start with the darkest colour first.

1.      Stamp your image on watercolour paper using the Basic Black Archival Stampin’ Pad. This ensures that your image won’t smear or bleed when you colour.

2.      Choose your ink pad colours. I like to work with a light and dark ink of the same tone such as Mossy Meadow and Old Olive. Test them out first to see how they work together as adding water to colours can make them separate if not a true primary colour.

3.      Squeeze each ink pad so that you transfer some of the ink from the pad to the lid. Use an Aqua Painter brush to pick up ink from the lid. These brushes are great as they hold water in the barrel. You can adjust the amount of water that comes out by the pressure you apply to the barrel. This allows you to adjust the strength of colour.

4.      Work on small areas at a time. If you are colouring a flower, focus on each petal rather than the flower as a whole. Work on one petal at a time. Use the lightest ink to colour the whole petal first.  Use the darker colour to fill in where there should be shadows. Think to yourself “Which part of the petal is under another?” That is where you add your dark colour.

5.      I like to use a dabbing and feathery motion with my Aqua Painter instead of a painting motion. This gives a more ‘watercoloury’ look with more variations of colour. You don’t need to blend the colours very much as the water helps merge the 2 colours naturally. From experience staring at one area for too long will convince you that it looks terrible. My advice is to just move to the next area and look back after it is dry and all complete. If you are just starting out and don’t like your efforts, just start again, relax and enjoy the process.  

6.      Try to vary the ratio of each colour strength. I usually do about 2/3 of the light and about 1/3 of the darker colour.

7.      A very light wash of Crumb Cake or Soft Sky around your image helps highlight it.

8.      My general order of painting flowers is:

1.  Light wash around image

2.  Paint leaves

3.  Paint petals – I start on the petal that stands out the most to me. Then I just work around from that.

For the leaves on this example I have used Mossy Meadow and Old Olive. The flower is painted with Blackberry Bliss and Rose Red.

The other sample has Cucumber Crush and Bermuda Bay on the leaves and Watermelon Wonder and Cherry Cobbler on the petals. I have stamped some random dots from Gorgeous Grunge around the red flower. To avoid stamping on the flower I have used the stamp sticker backing as a mask. It wipes clean and stores ready for the next time I need to used it.

I have added some stamped images on the Crumb Cake bases of each card using the matching ink. A white gel pen adds the finishing touches to the stamens.

Securing this gatefold card is easy. A small embellishment is placed on the smaller flap and the panel on the larger side is positioned so that it fits under the embellishment.

Offset gate fold instructions
Start with an A5 piece of cardstock. Score along the long side at 6.5 and 17 cm as per the diagram below. Fold each score line in towards the middle. Make sure the edges butt up to each other before creasing firmly with a bone folder.

I'll post the other examples over the next week.