Watercolor Workout

Today was a day that made me happy because I got to play in my craft room all day! I put on my Creative Mozart music (supposed to be good for creativity) and set out to create some new watercolor backgrounds.

I decided to try out some watercolor brushes, rather than use my Aqua Pen because I wanted a larger brush. Obviously you get what you pay for . . . I picked up a pack of brushes at Walmart and as I painted, I kept losing bristles on the paper! I guess I'll have to invest in some better brushes if I want to keep creating these types of cards!

To aid me in my quest for watercolor mastery, I purchased an online course from Online Card Classes. The class I got is called Watercolor For Card Makers. I have taken a course from this site before and it is well worth the fee!

For my class, it is an independent study as the real time class has already run. However, for $25, I get 11 lessons with printable PDF's for each as well as 5-6 videos per lesson showing the techniques for each lesson. I also get access to the forum and gallery and have lifetime access to the course and videos! I can even download the videos or I can watch them on the web.

I'm definitely going to enjoy working through the lessons as they not only work with real watercolor paints but inks, distress inks, markers, and pencils. There are several different teachers as well so you get to experience a number of different styles of watercolor techniques.

Today, I played with getting my paper sufficiently wet to allow me to have a proper flow for the paint to move around and blend.

I used Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay and Crushed Curry ink refills along with my new, albeit cheap, watercolor brushes! I had time to create three backgrounds. One, I probably will not use at all, the other I may use and the other I will share with you on the card I created!

After my watercolor background had been created and dried with my heat tool, I cut it down to 4 x 5" and to make the colors really pop, I cut a thin black matte 4 1/8 x 5 1/8."

I cut another matte, slightly larger at 4 3/8 x 5 3/8" and inked the edges with Melon Mambo, using a sponge dauber.

Using Jet Black Stazon ink, I stamped the sentiment from the Lovely Amazing You stamp set. I punched a tiny heart from Silver Glimmer Paper, using the now retired Small Heart Punch, and adhered it with a glue dot near the sentiment.

I cut a set of leaves out of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper using the Flower Frenzy Bigz L Die and adhered them to the left side of the watercolor using glue dots. The Pansy Punch and the Petite Petals Punch provided flowers from Silver Glimmer Paper which I colored using Blendabilities.

For the flower centres I used rhinestones and a Faceted Vintage Button; all were colored with Blendabilities. The larger flower was adhered with a Dimensional, the smaller flowers with glue dots.

I love the vibrant colors teamed with the sparkle from the leaves and flowers! I think that the glimmer paper reinforces the water droplet marks on the watercolor.

Some details:

What do you think? Leave me a comment below!

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