Watercolor Mother's Day

Hi all!

Today's post will be a quick one as I need to make a Walmart run and clean my house before school is out!

I was not planning on being in the studio today but I saw the challenge up on SCS this morning and couldn't resist!  The challenge is watercolor backgrounds and I had one on my desk with focal pieces and everything just begging to be used.

Both the background and the main images are done with different Twinkling H20 techniques.

Just look at that shimmer!

Aren't they just gorgeous!  That my friends, is the magic of ColourArte Twinkling H20s!

The background for both was originally all one piece.  I began by giving my colors a good misting with water and letting them sit.  I used Apple Blossom, Lemon Drop, Sunflower, Ginger Peach.  Once they were good & goopey, the consistency of honey is a good image to keep in mind, then I made random puddles on my craft sheet.

Mist the whole thing well with water and lay your watercolor paper face down in the paint, smoosh it a little and lift it up.  I usually cut the piece to size beforehand.  Check out the front and if there are any white spaces just lay it back down in the puddles of paint, misting them again first if needed.  Mist the front of the painted paper and sprinkle salt onto it and then let it dry completely.  Do the process fairly quickly.  The salt will add a bit of additional texture and interest to the painted paper as it dries.  Once completely dry brush the excess salt off.  Some of it will stick to the paper.  Next I took a stencil and added some plain white Modeling Paste and let that dry.  Wince the paint is waterbased the color will seep into the modeling paste.  You could also use gel medium which will give a slightly different look to it.  modeling paste is more opaque.

This is a 2 step stamp that I stamped with Twinkling H20s.  Red rubber works much better than clear stamps.  Again you want the paint to be honey consistency.  Paint your colors on thinly with a small paintbrush.  Mist very lightly (from a distance of several inches) with water and then stamp down onto watercolor paper.  Some stamps work better than others and you may have to play around with whether you do the misting step or not - on these I decided to skip it to get a crisper image.

This is from a gorgeous set of stamps from Crafter's Companion.  I stamped with black Archival ink.  Next time I will emboss my image with embossing powder when I stamp it to make the lines stand out a little better.  I am just learning how to watercolor images and I was pretty happy how this one turned out.

When you tilt it in the light the shimmer and sparkle just burst from the image!  You can also see how some of my black lines are covered by paint - this is why I will heat emboss next time.  When the image was done I spattered the piece all over with Twinks by tapping my brush against my finger.

And those are my last 2 Mother's Day cards!  I am entering them in the following challenges:

• Retro Sketches - the first card
• Mixed Media World - Use bright Colors
• Add A Little Dazzle - Color Inspiration photo
• Simon Says Stamp - Spring Flowers
• Creative Moments - Anything Goes/Spring
• SCS - Watercolor Background

So do you have any Twinks in your stash?  If not you really should add some!  Have a great day!