Daisy Blue

I have been playing with watercoloring to develop a tutorial for an upcoming event. It’s a super fast way to create dimension and texture on a stamped image. This image is not a stamp. I don’t have an outline stamp like this so I did a fast sketch on scrap Whisper White card stock.

Water coloring is one of my favorite things to do. It's very versatile and can give you different looks depending on the paper that you use and the watercolor medium. Wait. Isn't all watercolor the same? I'm glad you asked that. It's not really. There are various ways to achieve a watercolor effect. Watercolor pencils and crayons are applied directly to the paper then the color is moved with water and a brush. The look achieved is different than when you apply wet pigments to paper.

Today I am showing you wet on dry. (wet pigment on dry paper). Stamp or sketch your image onto white card stock with permanent ink. Then set up a palette. There are a couple of ways to do this. You can use the Classic Stampin Up ink pads and squeeze the closed pad to put some ink on the lids. I use an acrylic block or recycle a plastic lid from a food container. (when we are finished it can go back to it’s original purpose with no waste) and drop some ink from the re-inkers. This gives me deep rich color.

Aqua brushes make this easy and fast because they are self cleaning. Get the bristles wet, but don’t add water to the palate. Pick up the color you are using and sweep it across the image. I used Bashful Blue, Summer Sun and Certainly Celery.

I tilted my image so the color would run to the bottom of the petals and settle there - making it darker. Then I did a second sweep on each petal to deepen the color more. The leaves and the center of the flower were done the same way. After I brushed on the Summer Sun (yellow), I swept the brush over the inside edges of the petals. I love it when colors blend and run together. The results are always a surprise.


I honestly intended to throw this away when I finished, but the colors called to me and I couldn't do it. So I cut it out and popped it up on a card. The base and second mat are Bashful Blue card stock. Don't you just love how the colors match so well? The tab is a punch (yummo) and is inked with Summer Sun on the edges. Ribbon and other papers used are scraps from the bin.

Tee's Tip
Everybody is always blending blending blending. Color in life is not always blended so well. We have harsh edges and softer ones. So try including some harsh edges in your watercolor pieces.