Stamping and Water Painting Technique with Inked Flora

Hello, Altenew friends! Norine with you again today, with a FUN 2-step technique of stamping and painting with water. I used the Inked Flora Stamp Set, and it's especially appropriate for this technique as you will see.

Let's get started!

I began by inking up one of the bloom images in the stamp set with 2 or 3 analogous colors on the red spectrum; for example, Pink Pearl, Rouge, and Puffy Heart. Then I stamped it on an A2-sized piece of watercolor paper and, before the ink can fully dry, I used a water brush to randomly brush over a few of the edges of the image outline. On the edges of the bloom, I dragged some of the colors away from the stamped image to lightly fade out. Because of this stamp's design, the “scribbly” lines added extra ink pigment to re-activate with the water brush.

Then the next step is to stamp a second time on another piece of A2-sized watercolor paper. This time I don't re-ink the stamp but I spritz it lightly with water and quickly stamped while the water is reactivating the ink on the stamp. I left the stamp sitting on the paper for half a moment to let the paper absorb more of the liquid and color.

Depending on how much ink has transferred, I sometimes lightly mist the paper too after I remove the stamp. Generally, the more water, the more “impressionist” the image will look. Where needed, I sometimes use the water brush to pull color into or away from the areas.

I repeated the same stamping steps this time with the leaves. For today's examples, I combined Bamboo, Olive, Frayed Leaf, and Forest Glades with a little bit of Lagoon thrown in for good measure. You can either use a mask to cover the bloom so that the leaves look more tucked behind the bloom, or you can simply stamp so that the leaf stems don't overlap the edges of the bloom. I've done both in the samples above.

For the “Miss You” sentiment on the card above, I die cut the word YOU sing the Fine Alphabet Die Set. I then cut the top layer from the stamped image and added a fun foam layer that I colored dark green on the edges to match the colors on the card front.

If my cards have anything watercolor-y on them, then I will usually finish the card with some color splatters of diluted ink to match the colors already used.

One last technique I tried and loved is shown on the card above. As well as splattering ink drops on the card, I splattered spots of clean water that I covered immediately with glitter embossing powder and heat set. It produces a very random and organic glittery pattern that I find enhances the overall design.

I hope you are inspired to give this technique a try. The great thing about it is it produces two card fronts with one inked stamp effort! Who doesn't love a good 2fer one? Thanks for stopping by today and have a wonderful day!

~SUPPLY LIST~

Inked Flora Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Fine Alphabet Die Set [ ALTN ] Pink Pearl Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Rouge Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Puffy Heart Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Bamboo Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Olive Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Frayed Leaf Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ] Lagoon Crisp Dye Ink [ ALTN ]