Watercolor Class Day 2--paints--One more card

I stamped a flower design I liked with VersaFine ink, and the sentiment.  I then attempted to color in the flowers with my tube watercolor paints ( Winsor-Newton) using crimson.  I diluted with water quite a bit to go over the flowers, and then when dried, went over again with a slightly less diluted paint of the same color to add some shading.

All in all, I think it came out fairly well.  I've never used these tube paints before, and found them a little intimidating at first, but just pushed on, and I feel that the result is a lot better than I had envisioned!

Another card colored with my watercolor pencils

This was based on one I'd see somewhere, I can't remember exactly where--perhaps on Pinterest, or on one of the Facebook pages I'm a member of.  In any event, they had taken the snowman and made him into a wobbly card, which I thought was cool looking.  As I wanted to do a little more with my InkTense pencils for my Watercolor for Cards class from Onlinecardclasses.com, I chose that medium to color my snowman. 













I stamped the snowman on two pieces of watercolor paper, and colored both of them with my Derwnt InkTense pencils.  I cut out the best looking one, attached a wobbly spring to the back, and added to my card front.  It is really cute in real
life!



 

Another card with watercolor pencils

Using a few stamps from Peachy Keen Stamps' Lisa Jean Halloween set, I made a little Halloween scene with matching sentiment.  After stamping with VersaMark, I embossed with Zing! Opaque Black embossing powder.

My watercolor paper warped some during the heating process, but I managed to mostly flatten it out again before attempting my water coloring.  I used Derwent Inktense pencils, and tried to use a light touch, and it seemed to go okay.

I was attempting to do a little shading, and it was a little harder than I had hoped.  The cauldron didn't come out exactly as I had pictured it, but I guess it isn't too bad.  I thought the face turned out pretty well, but it doesn't show that much in the photo.  In real life, you can see it is darker around the edges, and lighter in the middle.

Online Card Class: Watercolor Day 2--paints

Went back and watched the Day 2 videos again, and decided to try the "dreamy" background.  I used Prang Oval 16 semi-moist watercolors on Canson Watercolor paper.

First I did a light yellow wash, and after it dried, I added some more yellow, let it dry, and then a third layer of yellow.  I decided what the background needed now was a little orange, so that was next.  When the orange was dry, I used the brush to flick a few yellow droplets on top, and then some orange droplets.

I stamped with black VersaFine Onyx Black a Tim Holtz saying, Be an Individual.  I had to stamp it twice, and it it didn't make a great impression on the watercolor paper.

To finish it off, I matted it in yellow, and used foam tape to attach to the off white card base.

I was pretty happy with the way the  background came out with the layers, and using the traditional paints wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Online Card Class--Watercolor Day 3 Watercolor Pencils

I didn't get a chance to watch the Day 2 videos until last night, so didn't do any water coloring yesterday.  Today, the Day 3 videos were available, so I watched them this morning.  As I had just received my Derwent Inktense ink pencils, I was eager to try them out, so I skipped the pan water colors for today.  I'll be trying some of the techniques out for that tomorrow.

I had this idea to emboss some watercolor paper with a butterfly folder I had on hand by Darice, and then color in the design with the pencils before spritzing it with a light mist of water. 

As it turned out, some of the colors bled into the background a little, and I had to use a brush to aid in the blending I had imagined.

I also wasn't happy with the blending on the largest butterfly, so I added a little more color and used water on a brush to blend it.  All in all, after it dried I liked how it turned out.

I stamped a Thinking of You Sentiment from My Sentiments Exactly in Hero Arts Pool ink in the upper corner, matted it on avocado green card stock, and used foam tape to attach it to a cream colored card base.

It was pretty obvious to me that I need to practice quite a bit on my coloring with the pencils, as I don't seem to be using consistent pressure, causing some places to be darker than others.

I'll be doing some Day 2 cards with pan watercolors shortly, and probably some more watercolor pencil cards.

Another card from Day One

This was made from the second watercolor strips card I made on the first day of class, and I was hoping it would turn out a lot better than the first one I'd done, as I was using a better watercolor paper.  However, I couldn't really see all that much difference, and so I was a little disappointed.









Looking at it, I thought I'd cut it down into a circle and stamp a flower on it.  Using the Simon Says Stamp largest Stitched Circles die, I cut out a nicely colored section of the strips.  I then used Onyx Black VersaFine Ink to stamp the flower stamp on the circle.  I attached it to the center of a white A2 card base.

When I stamped the Thinking of You I tried to curve it a little to match the curve at the bottom of the circle die cut, without being too obvious about it.  I think it turned out pretty well.

Another card from my Day One experiments

I took another of my first day experiments, which I didn't think turned out very well originally.  By turning it upside down, I thought it looked like a beautiful sunset, so stamped some trees in Onyx Black Versafine Ink.  I trimmed off some of the watercolor card where it had pilled before stamping, and then matted the card with black card stock. 

I had to do quite a bit of touching up on the bottom of my stamping, where I apparently hadn't pushed down on the stamp enough, but I think it turned out pretty well.

I was going to make this into a sympathy card, but I'm not sure if it is a little too bright for that.  I'm going to give it some thought.  Maybe I'll make it a thinking of you or missing you card.  The sentiment will go at the top, I think, although I left a little room on the bottom for a small sentiment if I want to go that way.

Card from Day One Watercolor Class

Using the first of my experiments from Day One of the class, I trimmed it down and stamped a sentiment from Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Phrases 2 with Onyx Black Versafine Ink.

I had to use a black micron pen to touch up a couple of places, but it actually stamped a lot better than I thought it would

I matted the sentiment with black card stock, and used foam tape to give it a little dimension on the white card base..

Even though the watercolor strips didn't turn out the way I had hoped, I think it turned into a pretty nice background.

Day One--last experiment

I decided to try the dots technique with my distress markers, and made several dots with peeled paint, squeezed lemonade, and tumbled glass. When I spritzed them, the peeled paint seem to take over the other colors, with the tumbled glass all but disappearing and the squeezed lemonade in the background after drying.

Since the distress ink can continue to react with water, I decided to add a few dots with worn lipstick, additional tumbled glass, and a little more squeezed lemonade.  After I spritzed it again, the different colors were more noticeable, but I still thought they were a little less blended than I wanted when they dried.













My next move was to get a large brush, wet slightly with water, and run across the paper from the left side to the right several times going down the paper and blending the colors more.  I rather like how it finally turned out, and think it will make an interesting background.

Class--Day One, Markers, continued.

I continued my experiment with the cheap markers I had.  I used a yellow-green marker at the top, followed by a yellow marker, then an orange marker, and at the bottom a red marker.  These markers did not have any type of brush tip, just the standard marker tip, although slightly rounded.

They reacted to the water similarly to the distress markers, although the yellow-green and yellow lost a lot of color when wet (and there was not much difference between these two when dry, either).  The orange seemed to spread into them a bit from the water, and everything ended up with a orange-red color, the yellow barely noticeable, and the green not at all as a green color, but appears to be more of a yellow.

I also noted that the markers seemed to be rough on the paper, with some pilling at the top while trying to color the yellow-green and, to a lesser degree, the yellow.  I hadn't noticed that with the distress markers.

Online Card Class: Watercolor for Cardmakers--Exploring Mediums Day One, Markers

Well, started another class from OnlineCardClass.com, about using different watercolor mediums.  I've already taken the first Watercolor for Card makers class they offered, but felt I would learn even more with this class.

The first day explored watercolor markers.  I have two sets of markers, my distress inks markers, and a cheap set that came in a set with other art supplies.










I started with the distress markers.  I colored in strips of color on my watercolor paper (not a very good paper, I'm afraid, as it came with the set).  I did strips of stormy sky at the top, followed by tumbled glass, shaded lilac and finally pickled raspberry.  I then added water to blend the colors together.  It turned out okay, but not what I'd call good.  The pickled raspberry didn't blend as well as the other ones, even after I added extra water.

 

I decided to try the same thing again, only this time on Canson Watercolor paper, and see if that made a difference.  Using the same colors and technique, I could see a slight difference in the two papers.

















For my third try, I washed the Canson paper with water, then tried using the markers on the wet paper.  The coverage was poor, with the two blues fading almost to no color except at the edges, even the lilac didn't make much of a showing.  The pickled raspberry, on the other hand, was quite vibrant.



I really wasn't very impressed with any of these experiments with the markers, but will be trying these techniques with the other watercolor markers I have in my next post.  Hopefully, they will turn out better.