No-Line Watercoloring with Enchanted Iris

Hello, Altenew friends! Thank you so much for stopping by today. Today, I would like to share a card with no-line watercoloring using Enchanted Iris. The colors I ended up using were inspired by the current August 2018 Inspiration Challenge. I hope you'll be inspired to play along as well.

I have been eyeing this stamp set for quite a while, and lately, I have been practicing my no-line watercoloring with floral images. I decided Enchanted Iris would be the perfect stamp set to practice some detail work.

I started by stamping the images with a very light ink on watercolor paper. You can stamp in light beige or light gray, which will eventually be covered by the layers of pigment you add. Watercolor paper usually has texture so I recommend a stamping platform or tool so you can stamp a few times to get a crisp, clear image. I learned this the hard way! Altenew carries the MISTI, which would work for this.

Detail watercoloring requires a lot of patience and time. I truly believe anyone can do it so do not feel discouraged by your early attempts. I practice and learn from trial and error. Sometimes I find that I have added too much pigment or water. Sometimes it will be too little pigment or water. For my card, I used a size 2 round brush since it's big enough to work with larger space but has a thin pointed end for detail work.

I used the newly released Altenew Watercolor 36 Pan Set to color the main images. I diluted my colors with water on the palette and started with very light layers. This gave me time to add as much depth as I wanted. I allowed each layer to dry before adding another. Once I was happy with the layers, I finished with the darkest shade for the shadows to give it a realistic look. For the flower, I used Desert Night and for the darkest shade, I mixed Desert Night with Jet Black. For the rest of the image, I used a combination of Bamboo, Forest Glades, and Evergreen. I mixed Evergreen with Jet Black for depth. Mixing based colors with darker shades allow your layers to blend well with one another.

I die-cut the images with the coordinating Enchanted Iris Die Set and added foam tape behind the images. I set this aside while I worked on the background. I love cover dies that can be used alone but also as subtle backgrounds. I already had a background with an orange watercolor wash so I die-cut Cross Stitch Canvas Die with it. I glued this to my white card base and then mounted the iris images over the colored canvas.

The sentiment is from one of my favorite sets, Dearest Friend. I stamped it with clear embossing ink onto black cardstock and heat-embossed with white embossing powder. Then I trimmed it down and added it at the bottom of my card with foam tape for some dimension as well.

I hope that you will want to try some no-line watercoloring, too. Be sure to tag us on social media when you do. Thanks again for visiting and for leaving me some love!

SUPPLIES USED:

Enchanted Iris Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Enchanted Iris Die Set [ ALTN ] Enchanted Iris Stamp & Die Bundle [ ALTN ] Watercolor 36 Pan Set [ ALTN ] Cross Stitch Canvas Die [ ALTN ] My Sweet Petunia MISTI – Original [ ALTN ] Dearest Friend Stamp Set [ ALTN ]