Aug 19, 2019

Just Throw It Under Running Water....



I wanted to watercolor the set Sketchy Floral ** from Altenew in red and green, with a little gold, so that I could use it for a Christmas card. Started by painting the leaves with gold metallic paint and the flowers with red ink.

I didn't like the first version. So, I just threw the whole piece under running water. I mean, are you even a stamper if you haven't walked away from your stamp space in frustration and just threw your watercolor panel under water?

The gold mostly washed off the leaves, but the flowers ended up pale pink with a bit of the metallic left from the gold paint that had washed over the flowers.

That got me curious, so I painted the flowers with Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide ink and painted the leaves with gold again, and rinsed them off, waiting for something special. The flowers were a darker pink and the leaves had just a hint of the gold.

At this point the watercolor paper was soaked, so I let it sit for a few minutes on a towel. Interestingly, it didn't warp. Finally, I painted the wet paper with a wash of Candied Apple and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide Inks and just let the inks soak into the wet paper -- no more rinsing.

The ink spread in a few places and you can see some of the pink peeking through. The leaves ended up a golden green and there is still a metallic shine on the red from the gold that washed over those petals (you'll have to trust me).


After the panel dried, I splattered it with watered-down white gouache paint, added a sentiment from Penny Black's Christmas Sentiments, and then adhered a few gold jewels.

A few suggestions if you decide to just throw it under a running faucet:
  • When you hold the watercolor paper under the faucet, move it around so that the water goes in different directions. 
  • You only need to keep the water flowing as long as it takes for the paint to run off. It's just a few seconds. You'll want to do this in a sink -- a hard flow of water is the trick, not a spray of water. 
  • The Canson 140 cold press watercolor paper never warped. Don't use a heat gun and keep it out of the sun and it will stay flat (at least mine did).
  • Let me know if you try this. Leave me a comment here or tag me on instagram at dearpaperlicious. Would love to see what you think.

MOOD WHEN DONE: This was fun!  ** The Sketchy Floral set is one huge image and a bunch of sentiments. I love it and found it on sale. However, thought I'd share that you cannot use this set unless you have a large stamp positioner (or are willing to cut it in pieces). That image is huge!

Aug 15, 2019

Yum



Remember when cupcake stamps were everywhere?  Never caught on with me, but fast forward, and I see Yana Smakula make this card using the Sweet Friend Cupcake from a newish company called Colorado Craft Company and I fell in love.  It's part of a series of Big & Bold stamp sets, all of which include a very large image. While these images may not be as versatile as smaller images, they are so much fun and pack such a punch!

My version is, of course, inspired by Yana's. Colored with Copics, hand trimmed, and finished it off with Nuvo Crystal Glaze (so far it isn't clogging!) on the strawberry and a sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio.

Yum.

MOOD WHEN DONE: Excellent! I started my volunteer job yesterday. It's at the Dallas office of the International Rescue Committee, and I'll be writing more about that later. So far, it's great.