Beginner Watercolor Card- Use Your Inks

Hello again, friends. Today I’m sharing a card I made after completing the Creative Watercolor Media class from Altenew. I am very much a beginner with watercolor…meaning I’ve made MAYBE three cards with a watercolor effect in my whole card making journey. It’s just very intimidating, right? Well, after taking this class, I felt a little more brave to try a very simple watercolor card.

I’ve been itching to use my Translucent Foliage stamp set and I thought it would be perfect to try watercolor. It just feels very flowy and free. For my watercolor paper, I used a sheet of Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper 140lb. The hot pressed papers are more smooth and I thought this might help me get a better result. To ensure my stamping stayed crisp and defined, I decided to heat emboss. I placed the watercolor paper in my Stampwheel 2.0 and arranged all the stamp images from the set. I picked those up with the flip plate and then prepped my watercolor paper with anti-static powder tool. Then I stamped all my images in Versafine Onyx Black ink. This is a pigment ink so it stays wet for a bit. This allowed me to immediately cover my images with Brutus Monroe Raven embossing powder and then melt with my heat tool.

With my heat embossing done, it was time to watercolor. Did you know you can use your dye inks and re-inkers to watercolor? That’s exactly what I did here. I grabbed my Altenew Fresh Dye Ink cubes in the colors listed below.

I started with the flowers and the number 4 round brush from the Artists’ Watercolor Brush set. When you watercolor, it’s important to have water to clean your brush and a separate cup of water to use for the coloring. I pressed the Frosty Pink ink pad to my glass mat a few times to get some ink. I dipped my brush into my clean water and then into my inky spot on my glass mat. I swirled it around a few times and then used that watered down ink to roughly paint my flowers. I covered each one in the Frosty Pink and then allowed that to dry. Then I pressed my Coral Berry onto my glass mat and followed the same process. With this darker pink, I colored each flower taking the color almost to the edge of the Frosty Pink layer. Then I allowed that to dry. Once that was dry, I pressed my Coral Berry ink onto my glass mat again and then wet my brush. This time, I didn’t water down the ink as much so I could get a darker color. I made the flower centers and the overlapping areas of the leaves darker for a little contrast.

For the leaves, I followed the same process with the green inks. I went over the leaf with the lighter Olive color first then added darker accents with Moss. I tried to keep the darkest color in the middle of the leaf. I allowed those to dry and then cut the flowers and leaves using the coordinating dies. When I arranged them on a white A2 card base, I realized the background needed something. So, I grabbed another piece of my Arches watercolor paper and cut it down to 4 by 5 1/4 inches. Using my number 18 brush from the same set of watercolor brushes, I created a watercolor wash over the panel using Cloudy Sky Fresh Dye ink this time. To do this, you simply wet your cardstock panel with a bit of water. Then pick up your ink with a wet brush and swipe it left to right across the paper from top to bottom. Probably the easiest and least stressful part of this card. :)

I allowed that to dry and then added some black splatter with my Carbon Black Gouache. I put a small amount of gouache onto an acrylic stamp block and added water until it was the consistency of warm syrup. Then I loaded a round brush with the watery gouache and tapped the brush with my finger over my panel. I did this until I was happy with the amount of splatter and then allowed that to dry. Now, before you try this, get yourself a scrap box of some sort to catch the fly away splatter or you’re going to splatter everything around you. If you think you will be fine without one, you will not. Trust me….LOL.

Whew! I made it pretty far without having a breakdown. Progress over perfection! Now for the assembly. I colored all three flowers included in the stamp set so I chose my two favorites for the front of my card. I arranged those in the center and then placed the leaves around until I was happy with how it looked. Then I adhered each piece with liquid glue. For the leaves, I adhered them only at the base of the leaf and the flowers only in the center. This allowed them to rise up from the card for some dimension. I stamped the sentiment from the stamp set in Versafine Onyx black onto a white scrap and then matted with a black scrap. I placed that where my two flowers overlapped with some liquid glue.

For my embellishments, I chose the Black Dots Confetti embellishment mix from Trinity stamps. I love these because they are flat and you don’t have to worry about them holding up in the mail. I placed them in a diagonal pattern across the card and adhered with liquid glue. I adhered my card front panel to an A2 card base of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock.

I saved the third flower for the inside. I did have to emboss and watercolor a couple more leaf clusters but I followed the exact same process as before. Then I cut a panel of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock to 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inches. I wanted to continue the black splatter on the inside but not over the whole panel. So I temporarily placed my flower and leaves into the bottom right corner to find where my splatter needed to end. Then I placed a piece of printer paper just above that area at a diagonal. I slid the flowers off the panel and then placed my panel along with the printer paper covering the top half into my splatter box. I used the same black gouache to create black splatter just in the area where my flower would be and then allowed that to dry. Once dry, I adhered my flowers and leaves with liquid glue and trimmed the excess from the sides of the panel. Then I placed my panel into my Stampwheel 2.0 to stamp the inside sentiment with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I placed that panel on the inside of my card base using liquid glue. That’s it for my first official watercolor card!

If you’re like me and never tried watercolor because it feels too difficult, I hope this inspires you to give it a go. I think I’m going to try using actual watercolors next to make the same card. Stay tuned to see the difference! Thanks for stopping by today. Now go get crafty!

To see the next card, check out this post.

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3 Comments

  1. Another fabulous creation! Love your color palette and the ethereal look of your design. I love watercolors 🤩, and I too started scared of it, because I was not happy with letting go of the little control I had in applying colors, but once I let go of the fear, and let watercolor do it’s magical thing I fell in love with it! You have inspired me to get my watercolors out (I have been on an ink-blending “kick” lately) Keep up the amazing work! TFS!

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