Playing with Water

In this warm July, we were playing with watercolours!  I've been wanting to try this technique since I saw it demonstrated two years ago at the Scrapfest Show.  The demonstration was slightly different that what we did, but it drove home the versatility of Crayola Washable markers.  Since the markers are washable, they react with water.  Maybe not as fine a reaction as artistic water-based markers (like, Stampin' Up!, Tombow, Pro-Marker Aqua Painters or Tim Holtz Distress Markers), but they still work like watercolours.  They are incredibly affordable so that you can "test the waters" with watercolouring to determine if you like it before investing is some higher grade markers.  The best part is that your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews can play with them too!

Here's an example of one way to water colour.  I stamped the image (from the sale bins at Michaels Craft Store) on watercolour paper and heat embossed with black powder.

The marker set I got has sixteen markers with generally two of each colour.  I did not have a light beige, only a light brown and a dark brown.  So, I used only the light brown here.  (Sentiment stamp is from Little Paper Shop).  I coloured only the areas I wanted to have the darkest shadows.  Then, I painted it with a wet, used paint brush that is past its time.

I was so pleased with the ease of this that I went out and invested in a Ranger Tim Holtz water brush.  (That brush is really nice but I say "invested" because it was ridiculously expensive at Michaels.  I would have waited to use a coupon, but I needed it right away for my class.)

Here's a comparison with my Copic markers.  For the Copics, I used a lighter beige which is closer to a "gauze" colour.  I coloured the paper with the colourless blender first, and then added the beige and then went back again with the colourless blender.  I was surprised that the Copics dragged some of the black out of the power or the ink below it.  It made smudge marks.

Here is the comparison.  I put the marker colours with their respective images.

Apart from the colour not being quite "gauzy", the technique of the watercolouring came out gorgeously.  One of these cards is going in the Halloween Drive for Kards for Kids.  Here they are on finished cards:

Here's how we applied watercolouring to our card workshop.  The leaf card uses two colours per leaf on a direct-to-stamp technique.  The butterfly card uses the painting technique with the waterbrush.

I have loved that butterfly stamp since the day I spied it in the store.  I bought it immediately on impulse and then it sat in my collection for about a year and a half.  Finally, I have used it and found a way to do it justice.