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Friday, July 10, 2020

Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial

Hello friends! The postman came with a fun surprise yesterday. The new Simon Says Stamp Send Happiness release is here! With the current international shipping delays, I was happy to see it in the mailbox. 

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson.

Send Happiness is a fantastic and very versatile release. You can see the whole release here. It is extra special to me, since it contains the very first stamp set I have designed. So you can imagine that I was waiting for that parcel. I love stamps. It was so fun to start stamping with these images that I worked with so much. I decided to create a wildflower garden in my art journal. If you would rather make a card, just pick a section of the page and use fewer flowers. 

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Mist with Distress Stain Spray Speckled Egg.

Another fun parcel that arrived this week contained Tim Holtz new Distress color Speckled Egg, and I decided to use the Distress Spray Stain for the background as a blue sky. I love this light shade of blue. I used Bundled Sage for the grass. The art journal page is a cotton-rag page in Dina Wakley's Media Journal.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Send Happiness release, Thoughtful Flowers stamp set.

Here you can see the Thoughtful Flowers stamp set. It is a 5x8 in set and contains a lot of flowers, butterflies, grass, a quote by HC Andersen and words that work for many different occasions and themes.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Stamp Thoughtful Flowers.

I started by stamping the four larger, or main flowers.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Mask the flowers.

Next, I stamped three of them on SSS masking paper and cut them out partially. Place on top of the stamped images.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set.

Stamp smaller flowers here and there and then remove the masks. It is a little tricky to stamp on the textured cotton-rag paper and I also had the company of a five-year old at my elbow, so I messed up a few of the stamped impressions a little, such as the buttercup. Don't worry if this happens, it won't be so visible in the end and you can add back some of the lines with a pen. The fainter impressions also makes it look like those flowers are further into the background.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Watercolor the crocus.

Mix up watercolor paint and start coloring. You can also use Distress Inks by smearing them on a non-stick craft sheet and mist with water.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set. Watercolor the poppies, buttercups and snowdrop.

Continue coloring the flowers. Drop in darker shades before the first layer is dry.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set. Stamp quote from Thoughtful Flowers.

Stamp the quote, butterflies and butterfly trails.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set. Paint the grass.

Paint the butterflies and add green paint to the grass area.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Stamp the grass.

Stamp various grass stamps with Leaf Green ink and some with black ink. Stamp some of the small words here and there with black ink, restamping without reinking.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Add details.

Add some highlights with a white gel pen and add back some lines with a black pen.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set.

This is one of my favorite quotes and I remember using it on the first wall-hanger I made and gave away as a gift to a very good friend, probably about fifteen years ago.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Splatter watercolor paint.

I splattered a tiny bit of blue watercolor paint on the background, especially in the sky, for just a little texture.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Stamped and watercolored crocus.

Masking is a great technique for adding life and depth to a garden scene, since some of the flowers look like they are behind the others.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Stamped and watercolored snowdrop.

The snowdrops normally don't grow at the same time as buttercups, but in a stamped wildflower garden, anything can grow.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Watercolor and stamped grass.

Grass stamps are very useful, both when it comes to adding texture to a grassy area, and to grounding the other flowers to the page. The grass makes it look like the flowers grow out of the grass, rather than on top of it.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set.

Add some sentiment stamps to the grass area too. I also doodled a border around the page.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set. Stamped and watercolored poppy-

Finally, I added three rub-ons from Tim Holtz Specimen Remnant Rubs.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers stamp set.

The white gel pen might pick up some of the watercolor pigment, making it blend nicely into the background in some areas.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson.

Restamp small words without reinking for a fun effect.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson. Stamped and watercolored butterflies.

The dots in the butterfly trails were painted purple, but I later added white gel pen dots to them, so that they stand out better.

Layers of ink - Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial by Anna-Karin Evaldsson.

The soft mists of Distress Spray Stains in the background, gives a tint to the page which unifies the different watercolor shades. I had such fun building this scene using quite many of the stamps from Thoughtful Flowers.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it inspired you to stamp and watercolor some flowers. 



Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today!  

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

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1 comment:

  1. This is such a beautiful page and very tempting stamps! Chrisxx

    ReplyDelete

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