Watercolor Greetings...

Today I have a couple clean-and-simple watercolor greeting cards to share with you. I came across a great pricing deal on some Yarka St. Petersburg watercolors, and couldn't wait to play with them. I wanted to experiment with these new colors using both a concentrated coloring and a watery, free-flowing coloring technique, so I pulled out a couple flower stamps to play with.

Instead of using a loose coloring technique all over, I played with coloring the images more exactly, and using the loose coloring in the background. These watercolors are fabulous for this...you need so little pigment on your brush to get the concentrated color that I imagine this set will last me for years!

First up, a little number using more "autumn-like" colors...

Originally I stamped the image with light brown ink to blend the outlines, but decided I wanted more contrast because I was using a blue-grey background, so I used a scribble technique over the outline with a black pen, and highlighted more with a white gel pen...

I reversed the usual order of stacked die cuts by placing a white cut under the black to add some brightness to the sentiment over the background...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Unity Stamp Co. "Lean on Me" (flowers);   Simon Says Stamp 'Happy & Smile" (sentiment)

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "Sending"

Watercolors:   Yarka St. Petersburg             Black pearls:   Kaisercraft

Miscellaneous:   Uniball Signo white gel pen;   Zig Mangaka black pen

Next up, a stamp with brighter florals, combining a darker background with a lighter, splattered one...just for fun...

I added more image outlining as with the first card, and highlighted the stamens with a white gel pen...

I used the clear Wink of Stella pen a little differently on this card. I loaded some of the sparkly ink onto my craft sheet, then back onto a smaller watercolor brush, and flicked it over the entire card front. It makes the card sparkle, but in a very subtle way. Here's a better closeup-all those tiny white looking dots are the silvery sparkle from the Wink of Stella pen...

And this time, I used the bright white diecut sentiment above the black shadow diecut for stronger contrast to the portion of the background that was darker...

Supplies:

Stamps:   Penny Black "Jubilant"

Dies:   Simon Says Stamp "Small Hello"

Watercolors:   Yarka St. Petersburg             Pearls:   Recollections

Miscellaneous:   Kuretake Wink of Stella-Clear pen;   Zig Mangaka black pen;   Uniball Signo white gel pen

Thanks so much for visiting today!