An Easy Approach to Detail Watercolor + Simon’s Friendly Frolic Release Blog Hop

Hello creative friends, Happy Friday! Are you hopping along in the Simon Says Stamp Friendly Frolic release blog hop? I am so excited to be one of the stops in this 2-day hop (visit Simon’s blog tomorrow for day 2)!

If you have already been hopping along, you should have arrived from Amanda Korotkova’s blog. Full hop order is listed below!

In my video today, I will be breaking down my process for creating detailed watercolor effects. This may look like a hard thing to acheive, but I am hoping that my tutorial (at the top of this post), will show you that it actually is rather simple. I recommend these tips when creating with this technique:

• Use a detail watercolor brush (a size 2 or smaller)
• Practice your brushstrokes on a piece of scrap paper before going directly to your paper. This will also familiarize you with how your brush handles and the most comfortable way to hold it.
• Pull watercolor from your half pans over a temporary palette and work with the small, damp puddle of pigment.
• Make sure your brush is not oversaturate; use as little water as possible and shape your brush into a point as you dab the water off.

I’ll show you these keys in the video, which I have at the top of this post.

After watercoloring the Sketch Lotus Flowers with my detail watercoloring, I stamped a greeting using the Uplifting Sentiments stamp set; both of these are new stamp sets from Simon’s Friendly Frolic release. There are a few Hawaiian Sunset sequins scattered on the card, and my card base is stamped with the also-brand-new, Folk Dance cling stamp using white pigment ink on top of Velvet cardstock.

I had so much fun with the detailed watercoloring, that I created a second card using the same technique! This time I challenged myself even more by using as few colors as possible to do my watercoloring. In total, I used only 6 different colors, and acheived new hues and tones by mixing my colors together.

The stunning hibiscus flowers are part of the new Earth Has Music stamp set that Simon released in their Friendly Frolic collection. I adore the images, which were all illustrated by the talented Stephanie Low. I kept the card super-simple, because this coloring was SO detailed. There is a sentiment from the Uplifting Sentiments set (a new favorite of mine now!), and I included a few sequins on this card too, which are from the Hawaiian Sunset confetti mix.

As with any blog hop, Simon is giving away a $25 gift card to every stop in this hop! All you have to do is leave a comment for a chance to win! The more comments you leave along the hop, the more chances you have at winning a little shopping spree! :)

Simon will choose the winners at the end of the weekend and annouce them on Wednesday on the Simon blog.

I hope you enjoyed the cards I’ve shared today and are inspired to try this technique for yourself!

Don’t forget that there are lots more inspiration to see along the hop! Your next stop is my talented friend, Jessica Frost-Ballas!

Simon Says Stamp Blog

Cathy Zielske

Amanda Korotkova

Nina-Marie Trapani – you are here!

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Nichol Spohr

Suzy Plantamura

Heather Hoffman

Elena Salo

Ankita Gupta

Karin Åkesdotter

Stephanie Low

Thank you so much for visiting with me today! I will be back again very soon with more inspiration to share!