Fall Watercolor

Fall Is In The Air

I've finally had a minute to get into the office/studio and do a little creating!  It seems like every time I think I'm going to have a chance to get creative, something else pops up and needs my attention.  I know pretty much everyone out there can relate, so I'm just going to get on to the project for today.

I've always enjoyed working with watercolor.  I love that even if you try, you can never get the exact same results from one project to the next.  For this project, I used 2 similar, yet different methods of applying color.  For the "Fabulous Fall" card, I used re-inkers, which I feel gives a deeper, more saturated application of color.  The "Autumn is..." card  was colored using the ink pads as the palette. 

I started with watercolor paper, since I knew I was going to be completely saturating the paper with water, and card stock tends fall apart.  Other than the watercolor paper, and the paint brush, all products used were Close To My Heart.

I used painters tape to hold my watercolor paper to a small cutting board I like to use to keep my project from warping too much.  I stamped the maple leaf image from the Fall Harvest Set (C1504) Champagne ink, that I stamped off on a piece of scrap paper to make the image VERY light.

I'm only using the stamped image as a guide for applying the water color.  The next step is to add water to the image I'm going to paint.  I want a bit of a pool of water on the image so when I add the ink, it will spread on it's own and give a more organic look, rather then leave brush marks on the image.

I hate to admit it, but I forgot to take pictures of the puddles of ink on my All-Purpose Mat (Z2045) when I was using the re-inkers.  The rest of the process is the same either way.  When using the stamp pads, you just press the center of the top cover of the pad into the ink pad to transfer the ink to the lid.

The lid will serve as your palette.  The colors used were:

Ponderosa Pine, New England Ivy, Olive, Goldrush, Autumn Terracota, and Barn Red. 

Now, I will admit, this looks a little ugly at this point, but don't give up.  I also added in Glacier in the background to give a "sky" effect.  Before I go any further, let me stress the importance of putting in the background color at this point rather then waiting until later.  In my first attempt, I applied the background after I "over-stamped" the detail image on the leaves.  Unfortunately, since the Cocoa ink I used isn't waterproof.  Here's what happened:

The Cocoa ink bled into the background.  This happened in several places, so I decided to start over and wait to add the detail until I was finished painting, and everything was completely dry.

Here, you can see what a difference adding back in the detail of the leaf makes.  Our clear stamps make lining things up very easy.  I added the sentiment in Cocoa ink in the center area.  

This card was painted using the re-inkers, and as you can see, the color is deeper.

This card was painted using the stamp pads.

I hope these 2 cards have given you some inspiration to try some watercolor with ink.  If you would like me to create a video tutorial, just send me a message.