Try This Unique Watercolor Painting Technique on Your Next Card!

Hello, Altenew friends! Norine here. I'm so glad to see you again! I have a bright and cheerful card for you today using a unique watercolor painting technique. If your weather these days (or outlook on life in general) is a little Decembery and you could use a pick-me-up, I think this might be the card to do it! Once again I'm breaking color rules, but I think it's justified!

Let's get started:

I used the Poppy Garden Stamp Set to make this card, along with the Artist Watercolor 24 Pan Set to paint with. First, I painted on Altenew's Watercolor Paper Pad and fussy cut the stamped and painted flowers.

To begin, I started by cutting a piece of watercolor paper slightly smaller than the traditional A2 card size and painted stripes of paint from bottom to top, varying the length of the stripes and doing a wash of paint, from darker at the bottom to lighter at the top.

In order on the background, I painted stripes of Fiery Sunset, Cherry Blossom, Shades of Purple, SeaShore, Rain Forest, Summer Afternoon, and a last stripe that is a mix of Cherry Blossom and some Fiery Sunset.

I painted the stripes alternately, leaving a space between every other stripe, and letting the paint dry before moving on to paint the stripes in between. Doing that allowed for a slight overlap of color without one wet color seeping into the neighboring wet stripe.

Then, while the background panel dried, I stamped two of the blooms and two leaves from the Poppy Garden Stamp Set. First, I stamped and hand cut a mask so I could have one of the flowers tucked behind the other and the leaves tucked behind the other flower. I stamped with Obsidian Pigment Ink and heat set with clear embossing powder.

Next, I began painting the flower arrangement in a way that loosely matched the colors of the petals with the stripes on the background.  Unconventional, I know, but I like it and I love the vibrant enthusiasm of the colors!

I painted the first layer with the colors in the areas where I wanted them; then, to get a pleasing blend, I went back and added more depth to the colors with a 2nd layer of paint while the first was still not quite dry.

Setting the flowers aside to dry, I stamped two sentiment stamps for the greeting. The “I've been thinking of you” is from the Poppy Garden Stamp Set, but the “dear friend” is from the Say It With Love Stamp Set. I also added some black paint splatters, and while those dried, I added foam tape to the back of the fussy-cut flowers. I adhered the card panel to a folded card base of off-white cardstock, then glued the dimensional flowers on top.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!  Maybe you'd like to give this a try but are drawn to other colors. This technique will work with whatever colors you choose because the magic is in the repetition of color order between the background and the stamped flowers.

Thank you so much for stopping to visit and have a wonderful day!