Watercolor Card – Quick and Easy

Hi friends! As promised, I’m sharing the second watercolor card I made using the Translucent Foliage stamp set. On the first card, I used my dye inks. This time I’m using my Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set from Altenew. I had never used actual watercolors before so it was really fun to play. I used cool colors on this card for a wintery look.

Using my Stampwheel 2.0, I stamped my flowers and leaves with Versamark ink onto a panel of Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper then heat embossed with Penny Embossing Powder from Brutus Monroe. I prepped my paper with anti-static powder before stamping and embossing.

Once the embossing was done, it was time to watercolor. I grabbed my Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set and a number 4 round brush from the Artists’ Watercolor Brush Set. With a jar of clean water and some water to clean my brush, it was time to color. To activate your colors, you need to place a few drops of water onto the pan. Once the color starts to mix a bit with the water, you can pick that up with your brush and either paint directly onto paper or dab that onto a palette to dilute further or mix with other colors.

For the flowers, I mixed Shades of Purple with a little bit of Cool Summer Night to deepen it a bit. I painted that color over all the petals and allowed it to dry. Then I went back over all the petals with the same color but a bit darker by not diluting as much with water. I took the second layer of color almost to the edge of the first layer for some contrast and then allowed that to dry. For the flower centers and overlapping areas of the petals, I used the Shades of Purple alone. The leaves I colored in two layers of Cool Summer Night. The first layer was a light wash and then I came in with more concentrated color for the second layer and focused that mostly in the center of the leaves. I die cut all my images with the coordinating dies using my Spellbinders Platinum Die Cutting Machine.

The background is another watercolor wash. I trimmed a panel of the same Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper to 4 x 5 1/4 inches. Again, I mixed two colors, Sea Shore and Rock Collection, to get a more subtle gray blue. I painted onto my panel, with a number 18 brush from the same brush set, in horizontal strokes from top to bottom. After allowing that to dry, I added black splatter with some Carbon Black Gouache.

With my panel complete, it was time to arrange my die cuts. I picked my two favorite flowers and placed those down the center of my card. Then I added the leaves under each flower until I was happy with the placement. Leaving the flowers in place but not adhered, I pulled out each leaf die cut one at a time, placed liquid glue just at the base and then carefully tucked back into placed under the flower. Once the leaves were adhered, I used liquid glue just in the center of the flowers to adhere those to the panel. This allowed the flowers and leaves to lift up from the panel a bit and create some dimension without using foam tape.

With my images adhered to my panel, I adhered the panel to a gray A2 card base. Then it was time for my sentiment. I chose the ‘Thinking of You’ sentiment from the stamp set. I stamped on a scrap of white and then created a mat with a black scrap and adhered to my card as shown above with liquid glue. For embellishments, I chose the Heavenly Skies embellishment mix from Trinity Stamps. I placed those around the flowers and around my sentiment.

For the inside, I grabbed a panel of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock cut to 4 x 5 1/4 inches. I placed my third flower into the bottom right corner with some of the petals hanging over the edge. Then I placed a few leaf clusters around until I was happy with the look. I wanted to add black splatter to tie it in with the front so I took the panel and covered it a diagonal with printer paper just above where the flowers would be. I slid the flowers off and placed the panel with the printer paper into my splatter box. I mixed some Carbon Black Gouache with some water and then added some splatter with a round brush. I allowed that to dry and then adhered my flowers and leaves as I had placed them before with liquid glue. I trimmed the excess from the panel with scissors and then adhered into my card base.

That’s my second watercolor card using traditional watercolors. It was really fun to play around and mix some colors together. I’ll definitely keep practicing. I hope this inspires you to try watercolor if you haven’t. To see my first card, check out this post. Thanks for stopping by today. Now go get crafty!

Products Used:

Supplies Used: