More Watercoloring

In my last post, I played with an old “ink and drag” technique using Art Impressions stamps and inspiration.

This card, also an Art Impressions image, still uses watercolor techniques, but in a more traditional way — stamping and coloring.

I stamped the image in Imagine Craft’s Memento Tuxedo Black on the smooth side of Ranger/Tim Holtz Watercolor Paper. To create my colors, I scribbled Faber-Castell PITT Big Brushes on an acrylic sheet. Using that as my palette, I picked up the colors with my water brush. I love how the colors came out — vibrant and easily blended and shaded.

I ran a piece of mint card stock (Paper Source) through an embossing folder (We R Memory Keepers/American Crafts), trimmed and mounted it to a top-folding card base. I mounted the car image on foam tape. So fast and easy! I love the way the Art Impression images lend themselves to my watercolor obsession — the images do all the heavy lifting and I get to color!

I’m also very happy with the color from the Big Brushes and will be using them more in my watercolor journey!

Thanks for popping in.

Fun with Ink and Faux Watercolor

I love watercolor in all its many forms.

In an early post here I talked about a technique I learned years ago using die inks to “drag” in color to your stamped images.

Here’s one of the first samples I made using this technique, which I learned from Art Impressions:

The idea is simple — color your stamps with a water-based ink or marker (in this early one I used mostly Marvy and Tombow markers). Then use a slightly wet paint brush to “drag” the color into the design.

I hadn’t played with this technique for a while until I found some Art Impressions stamps I bought way back in January!

(I love how the stamps come with complete instructions. If you’ve never created scenes before, the instructions give you confidence to build a scene. Also, there is lots of great information and inspiration on the Art Impressions YouTube channel.)

For the first impression, I stamped the girl using Tim Holtz/Ranger Distress Pumice ink on the smooth side of Ranger’s Tim Holtz watercolor paper (I do love this paper — the smooth side takes stamped images well while still holding up to water.)

Then I started playing with coloring, using a variety of Marvy (yes, my OLD Marvy markers that were still nice and juicy!), Tombow and Distress markers.

Here is the finished card:

(You can’t really see it here, but I added some clear Wink of Stella to her dress and hat for subtle shimmer. Man, do I love Wink of Stella!)

The set also comes with this adorable bridge:

The only thing stamped here is the bridge itself, stamped with Distress Vintage Photo. For the rest, I just added watercolor shapes, just blobbing on where I thought trees and grass and flowers should be.

I dried that, then added details, stamping some shrubs and flowers and softly blending them with my water brush. Here is the finished card:

And here is a shot of my messy desk with all the materials scattered around:

How can anyone work that way???? Grin.

My next post will have a few more samples. Thanks for stopping in!

Fabulous Finds Friday — Flesh Tones

Do you ever struggle with getting flesh tones right on your stamped people? (Or animals?!)

Prima’s Hair & Skin Tone watercolor pencils by Julie Nutting makes it easy — perfect for coloring in her big dolls!

Here’s a look at just the skin parts:

(And how about that great Julia Nutting stamp? This pretty lady, Audrey, is from Julia’s series.

These stamps are not small:

But they are so much fun! In another post, I’ll show how I use these “dolls” in different ways.

Thanks for looking! (Yes, this was supposed to be posted Friday. Sigh.)

Fabulous Fiskars Fuse

I needed a quick gift for a friend and decided some letterpress-like gift tags would be just right.

Using my Fiskars Fuse, I was able to make more than a dozen tags in a about 20 minutes:

The Fuse (which I wrote about in this post) cuts, colors and creates a letterpress impression in one fell swoop. I use regular inks — pigment or dye (although a well-inked pigment pad seems to give better coverage).

Here’s a closer look:

The bad news is, Fiskars is no longer promoting the Fuse and I couldn’t find it on the Fiskars Web site. The good news? The Fuse is still available online, just search for it.

Thanks for stopping by!