Wishing Better Days

Happy Sunday!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! Today’s Sunday Spotlight features a great watercoloring technique: watercoloring without lines. This technique is a lot of fun to use to create a more “hand painted” look to your card and looks fantastic when finished. I love how soft the lines are, and how much the color can really pop, without the distracting outlines of the image to take away from your design.

For this week’s Sunday Spotlight, I have a video to share on the making of this card… I hope you enjoy!

Tips & Tricks

When stamping your image to watercolor without lines, use a light, water soluble dye ink in a like-color to the other hues in your project’s palette. This will allow the stamped image to be “hidden” beneath the other colors you will be applying over top. For my image, I use Tim Holtz distress ink, in Antique Linen.

I covered my stamped image in a wash of water before applying my colors. This allows the colors to blend more easily and cleanly.

Pay attention to your water usage to control the blending of your colors. The more water you use, the more your colors will run together.

To add tiny details, use a water soluble pencil or distress marker; once the details are applied, you can come back in with a damp brush and lightly soften the lines. Use very little water to maintain the definition, but enough to soften the harsh lines of the marker/pencil.

When stamping my sentiment, I applied the distress inks using a blending tool. I used a base coat of Wild Honey and a few light taps of Fired Brick. I then covered the ink with clear embossing powder.

Challenges

This card’s color palette was inspired by the Color Challenge over at the ColorQ blog and is also entered in the Simon Says Stamp “Old & New” challenge at the Monday Challenge blog, the CASoloy “Date” challenge and the “Something New” challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog.

Supplies

• Ranger Inkssentials watercolor paper
• Recollections white cardstock
• Hampton Art butterfly cling stamp
• Avery Elle “Weather It” stamp set
• Tim Holtz distress inks: Dusty Concord, Worn Lipstick, Fired Brick, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain, Antique Linen
• Recollections clear embossing powder
• Ranger ink blending tool
• scoring board and embossing stylus
• Yatsutomo waterbrush
• Wink of Stella clear glitter brush
• Staedtler EgroSoft colored pencils
• Heidi Swapp Gold Lame Color Shine
• Studio G leaf stamp