Hello creative friends! Today I’m sharing a card that I made while participating in Altenew Academy’s Stunningly Simply Watercolor Techniques online course, instructed by Lydia Evans. I took this class as part of my Altenew Academy Level 3 certification. I’ll have to say that this course was one of my favorites so far. I felt like I learned more techniques that I wasn’t familiar with, and they all seemed to be at about my level of skill, which is to let the water/ink do all the work! I’m more of a crafter than an artist for sure, but after creating this card in particular, I sure feel like I created art rather than crafted a card. This might need to get framed and stay in my craft room, er… I mean, “studio”.

The inspiration for the focal point came straight from one of the lessons in the class. Lydia used a flower from a different set (Beautiful Day), and demonstrated the technique using Distress Picked Raspberry Ink and Distress Chipped Sapphire Ink. The two colors blended into a beautiful purple. I chose two of my favorite Distress colors, Saltwater Taffy and Seedless Preserves. I also used a different but simlar flower from the Golden Days Layering Stamp Set. I finished my card very differently than hers.

I don’t want to give away all of the secrets – you should really take the class yourself! Basically this is a no-line watercoloring technique, done on watercolor paper. I used Canson XL watercolor paper. After selecting an outline stamp with plenty of open areas to work in, you stamp in your lighter color ink. I dried it at this point with my Ranger heat tool. I “smooshed” some ink out of each ink pad onto a craft mat. Then I used a small paint brush and clean water to cover one petal with water, filling in the area I wanted to add color to. I picked up some Saltwater Taffy ink on my brush, and touched it to the water, letting the ink “drop” into the water. Before that dried, I picked up some Seedless Preserves ink with another small brush, and touched it just to the area of the petal that is closest to the center of the flower – where I thought there would be shading. That’s it! I let it air dry, which didn’t take too long. You have to do one petal at a time, and you can’t move on to an adjoining petal until the first one is completely dry. You can however work on another petal in a different area of the flower. After all of the petals were done, I stamped over the center of the flower with Distress Villainous Potion and Black Soot, using the flower center stamps in the Golden Days Set.

I found that it was better not to try to go back and touch up something you don’t quite like. You kinda get what you get. You’ll get the hang of it… maybe you need a little more ink, maybe less. But once all of the petals are done, you’ll just see your beautiful flower, and you won’t notice each petal.

I added leaves in a similar way, after making a mask for the flower to get a layered effect. To pick the color for the leaves, I used a color wheel. The Saltwater Taffy and Seedless Preserves are basically Split Complementary colors, so Forest Moss was on the other end of the triangle. I just used one color for the leaves, layering the ink in places to get darker areas. I made leaf masks so I could add some background. I used the Altenew Linear Stencil and a blending brush to add a bit of Tattered Rose Distress Ink and then spattered some bright gold mica spray on top. The “love” sentiment is from the Altenew Versatile Greetings Die Set. The sub-sentiment is from a metallic Tim Holtz Idea-ology sentiment sticker pack.

Thank you for stopping by my blog – I appreciate you! Give yourself permission to take care of yourself today and spend time doing what fills your heart! When your heart is full, there is more to give to others!

Altenew products used:
Altenew Golden Days Layering Stamp Set
Altenew Linear Stencil Set
Altenew Versatile Greetings Die Set

Also used:
Ranger Distress Ink – Saltwater Taffy, Seedless Preserves, Villainous Potion, Tattered Rose, Forest Moss, Black Soot