Good morning! Over the last few mornings I’ve spent a little time playing around with my watercolors…I’ve been trying new things and most of the time I end up throwing out my experiments but sometimes something just clicks and I have to turn it into a card! The goal of these morning sessions is to get more comfortable with different coloring mediums but it’s fun when you get a card out of it, too!
I’ve had this pretty Sketched Florals set from Lil’ Inker Designs for awhile now and never got around to playing with it until this week! My goal for this watercolor session was to achieve a really soft blend of two contrasting colors without any harsh lines and I am happy with how it turned out. I stamped the flowers with versamark and heat-embossed them with white embossing powder. I used a 5″x7″ piece of Arches hot press watercolor paper that I taped to my work surface after embossing. First I painted my flowers by brushing the image with water first and then adding shades of red and purple from my Mission Gold watercolor palette in lots of layers. I built up the color slowly to keep it from spreading too far and dabbed at it with a paper towel to keep it in the lines as best as I could. I allowed the red and purple shades to overlap into the stamens of each flower and then added a little yellow which created a shade of light ochre. Once I was happy with the flower I watered down the same shades and added a light wash around each flower keeping the paper quite wet.
Finally I added the green watercolor to the bottom left corner of my paper and repeatedly cleaned my brush and used lots of water to blend it out and into the light shades of red and purple. I dabbed away any spots of color that pooled too much and then allowed it to air dry. After it was totally dry I added splatters of green and purple. I let that dry and then trimmed it down to 4″x5.25″ before adhering it to a black card base. Finally I stamped the sentiment from Sketched Florals onto black cardstock and heat-embossed it with white embossing powder. I trimmed it down to a label and then adhered it to the card with foam mounting tape! It was never intended to be a card but I think it ended up working quite nicely as a card!
Anyway, thanks for checking out my watercolor experiments and have a great weekend!
Psst…when I was working on my supply list I realized that Laura actually has the Sketched Florals set on sale so you might want to head over and check it out! 😉 There’s actually a new sales category that has great deals on some awesome older sets!
Lots of fun things happening on my blog this week! Don’t forget to check out my giveaway on the Simon Says Stamp New Beginnings blog hop here, the My Monthly Hero kit giveaway here, and my instagram giveaway on the photo of ink pads!
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Jess, this is beautiful. Lovely work!
So fun to experiment and beautiful card too! BONUS!
Beautiful card, love the colors and watercoloring!
This is just gorgeous Jess! Love the soft, muted colors!
Oh my, this color combo works so well together. Love the subtle, soft coloring and spatters.
So beautiful, Jess!
Gorgeous flowers, Jess, and the purple/yellow combination certainly heralds the arrival of spring (which I hope happens soon…tired of snow!). Your soft background and splatters adds to the impact. Your soft blend of contrasting colours is a resounding success!
~carol
Such a pretty card. Love the watercolor touches below the flowers, too.