Watercolours and cling wrap

I played around with a fun technique for these cards, using watercolours and cling wrap. It is for a Winterfest challenge at the Stamping board at Two Peas, called Water Play. The fun challenge was basically to play around with watercolours (or ink) and water and a paint brush, and letting the background take centre stage. The cards are also for this month’s Hero Arts challenge (friendship theme).

The flowers were embossed with Sea Foam white powder first. Then I applied watercolours on watercolour paper with a paint brush. I mixed some of the colours beforehand and let the rest mix directly on the paper. The card was immediately covered with crumbled up cling wrap. It is important to let the paper dry with the cling wrap on top. It creates a great textured effect, and the texture differs depending on the look of the cling wrap and to some extent on the paint colour. For these two cards, I pulled the cling wrap so that it formed pleats, creating a grass like texture. I made a whole bunch of other backgrounds too, using different colours and crumbling the cling wrap up in different ways. It was a lot of fun.

After the background dried, I worked a bit more on the flowers. First I lifted colour out from the flowers with clean water and a paint brush, making them stand out more from the background. On the darker card, I mixed a deep pink/purple and painted it in the centre of the flower, also adding some addition lines besides the embossed ones, and shadows to the stems. I scratched away some of the paint with my craft knife, creating fine lines. I also added lines to the Dandelions with white gouache paint.

Here's the second, lighter card:

On the lighter card, I also lifted out the paint from the Dandelions, and painted dark pink in the centres. Then I dry brushed white gouache paint on top of the flowers, in the direction of the embossed lines, creating a misty, chalky look. The sentiments were white embossed on vellum.

Thank you for visiting!

Supplies: Hero Arts Star Bursts K5585, Anytime Messages CL129, Sending Smiles CL490; Daler & Rowney watercolours (pans); Ranger Seafoam White embossing powder; vellum; watercolour paper; pearls, rhinestones