Folded with Care

For this next class I chose watercoloring in a way I’ve never done before.  Watercolor painting can be great or …I’ll just say, not so great.  It is definitely a work in progress for me so I welcome another opportunity to learn.

Instructor Jen Rzasa does an excellent job of starting from scratch in teaching this watercoloring class…right from the beginning of knowing about the paper and about playing with the colors to get varying results. Once she described all the differences in materials, she then went on to show some different ways to paint with watercolors. 

I chose to make my card with the method on wet on wet.  To do this I first taped my water color paper down on cardboard to help keep it from warping.  Then I took a wide flat brush and gave the paper a wash with water.  I chose greens for this background using Forest Glades, Frayed Leaf, and Bamboo from my Altenew 36 half pan set of Watercolor paints.  First, I put a drop or so of water on the color cube, let it sit to mix with the paint then pick up some of each color around the washed paper.  I played with it to add color and water to let the colors mix and blend on their own. 

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The next step is to take a stencil and put it on top of the WET paint, smushing it down.  Since the background was green, I chose the Feathery Stencil as it looked like leaves to me.  I needed to let it dry with the stencil on it and some weight for several hours.  I put a plate from a die cutting machine on top of it for even pressure, then my Misti stamp positioner, then an acrylic block and scotch tape dispenser.  I knew I might peek before it was done so I walked away from it to keep me from checking on it before it was dry. 

The reveal was so much fun…I peeled away the layers on top to reveal the actual painting!  The lines were subtle but clearly there.  I really liked the outcome.

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Next, I die cut the Altenew “Thinking of You” die three times…twice in white and once in a deep green.  I glued the two white together, but when I added the deep green, I purposely offset it to have a white shadow effect.  Then I used the Nuvo Shimmer pen to add some sparkle to the sentiment.  I found it came out fast and I got too much on the lettering.  When dry I just used a piece of paper towel to wipe off some of the shimmer.  I wanted to be able to see the green lettering against the green background so by wiping some shimmer off, it gave the greeting a bit of sparkle without covering the cardstock.

I cut out the background with a 4”x5.25” stitched die from My Favorite Things positioning the parts of the background to show as I wanted and make the sentiment stand out the most.  I popped it up with foam tape to a white card base…helping to highlight the shadow of the wording.  Then I used enamel dots from the Altenew Green Fields selection to dot the I’s and add some embellishment to the card. 

I can see doing these backgrounds in mass using different colors and different stencils to make many backgrounds at once.  That would be a big time saver if making many cards, but at the same time give lots of practice with the great Altenew watercolors.

So tonight, I want to tell you I am “Thinking of You” and hoping that you are healthy and safe and that in this world you are finding some joy.

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