I started out this piece knowing that I wanted to use my ‘Kelly Creates Floral’ stamp set, because I just love it! I also knew that I wanted the outlines to be metallic & embossed, with the colour loosely dropped in.
Whenever I’m embossing I use WOW! embossing powders, they always work so well and the shine you get off them is stunning. This time I used Platinum, extra fine so that it would be able to pick up all of those little details. This powder has never let me down, I absolutely LOVE IT.
I had started with a 7×7 panel of watercolour paper and once the flowers were embossed I taped it down to my work surface to hopefully reduce the amount of warping.
Last time we were at Ikea, I saw these brushes and I really wanted to try them out. I think they were around £3, so I figured they were worth a shot!
I was actually very pleasantly surprised with them! The bristles are very soft, but with a decent amount of spring back so they don’t just collapse under the weight of water & paint. They aren’t the best brushes I’ve ever used but they are FAR from being the worst, so I think they’re definitely worth getting.
I didn’t want any white paper showing between the floral elements, so I decided to do a bit of under painting first. I brushed water over the whole paper, that also created a background for me as the pigment spread.
That was not an intentional background, but I actually really liked how it turned out, with a gentle fade back to white in the upper corner.
I love to watercolour, but I still find it difficult to do. In fact, I think the hardest thing for me to do is to LEAVE IT. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I really need to learn to just let it all dry and then reassess, because I think that’s when watercolour looks its best, when it is truly organic rather than being micro managed.
I did a little better at that this time, but I still wasn’t happy with the details so I grabbed my colouring pencils to add some extra shading, and I was SO much happier with the results.
I very loosely added colour to the flowers and leaves; dropping it in to the wet paper, I wanted some of the colour to seep outside of the individual elements. Then I added some splatters of gold using my paint brush to flick gold paint off an acrylic block.
One thing to be very mindful of when using multiple colours is which pigments will meet and mix; you don’t want to allow complimentary colours to mix, because you can quickly end up with a muddy brown or grey colour. For example, red & green are complimentary colours, so I painted the flowers first and allowed it to dry completely before bringing green pigments in.
I was happy with the loose colours that I achieved but I did want to add a bit more shading, so I used my Black Widow pencil crayons to add extra details. I was really happy with the result.
I wanted to personalise this card for the manager of the Nursery that both my daughters attended, she is a lovely woman who works so hard and deserves to be spoilt. My youngest daughter is starting school in September so I won’t have any babies for Sharon to look after anymore!
I pencilled the name in first and then wrote over with a Tombow dual brush in black, but I totally cheated by thickening all of the down strokes afterwards. I do want to learn how to do proper brush lettering but it’s so hard even at the best of times, let alone when my hands start tremoring!
I finished up by trimming the panel down to allow for a warm grey border around the edges, and attached it to a 6×6 Kraft card base. I included a sentiment which I heat embossed with WOW! Opaque white, drew in a stitched border and added a few unbranded gems for extra sparkle.
That was me finished, and I’m really quite happy with how it turned out! I’m definitely going to try water colouring an embossed image again, I really like that you can be quite loose with it because ultimately the lines are still there to keep the image clear.
Have any of you tried the same technique? Or do you have any watercolour painting tips for me? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if you give this a go please tag me so I can check out your work!
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Either way, have an awesome day! T.
Supplies Used:
- Daler Rowney Multimedia Paper
- Versamark ink pad
- WOW! Embossing powders
- Super fine Platinum
- Opaque Bright White
- Mala water colour paint brushes
- MozArt Supplies Komorebi Japanese water colour set
- Kelly Creates Floral Stamps
- Black Widow pencil crayons
- Tombow Dual Brush pen – Black
- Uni-Ball Signo Broad – White
- Unbranded gems – Ebay