Online Card Class: Exploring Watercolor Mediums

One last post with some cards for the current Online Card Class. This one has been very interesting, and I spent quite awhile yesterday playing with different kinds of watercolor mediums and different techniques. A few ended up on cards, and more than a few ended up in the wastepaper basket, but that’s to be expected. I learned quite a bit in the process, and enjoyed it, regardless of the outcome.

The first card ended up being one of my favorites despite the fact that about half-way in to watercoloring the heart, it was simply awful. Instead of tossing it, I started dropping in more color and it ended up totally different (and much better) than what I expected. This came from the Day 1 lessons using watercolor markers. I played around with Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush pens which I received as a Christmas gift last year. Because I owned those, I was reluctant to order any Zig Clean Color markers, but I’m glad I did as I find them much easier to use. Both were ultimately used on the card below.

I white-embossed the heart from the new Simon Says card kit stamps, ” Here’s Looking at You,” and then watercolored it. The sentiment is from Papertrey’s “Round and Round” set embossed in Liquid Platinum. Since none of my metallic cardstocks matched, I used a technique Jennifer McGuire showed in a Day 1 video—edging a piece of cardstock with Versamark ink and then sprinkling on the embossing powder. Voila! A perfect match.

The next card uses the traditional watercolors in pans or palettes (Day 2.) This time I used the Kuretake Gansai set which I love for it’s bright colors. The card itself was inspired by one that Debbie Hughes created for this month’s Simon Says card kit.

The stamp is from a free set sent to me by Simon Says called “Your Birthday,” and the die cut is from Papertrey’s “Swoosh” set. I carefully (learning from earlier in the week), dropped on some Heidi Swapp gold spray and added a few sequins.

There are actually two cards (just different embellishments) for the Day 3 technique of using watercolor pencils. Most of them were Inktense pencils, but a few are from a set I bought years ago by Staedtler. It was a bit of a challenge to find the kind of image I wanted, but I found this old wooden stamp by Stampington which worked out perfectly.

The sentiment is from Simon Says (another favorite card kit set) called “What’s Brewing?” The die cut (also Simon Says) was cut from a failed watercolor background. (Actually there are no failures with that technique. I save them all for exactly this purpose!)

I started the last card first, and abandoned it, but finally decided I could “save” it. The only change from the first card is that I die cut some banners (Papertrey’s “Sketched Shapes”) from some DCWV vellum I picked up at Michaels. I adhered a MME enamel dot on top.

Now I need to get back to Project Life, and our trip!