Random Reflections

Back again with another project from Altenew's "Watercolor and Beyond" class. This has been such an easy class to keep up with. Jennifer's video's are short and to the point, but with enough detail to easily understand the concept she's teaching. I have just two more lessons to complete—the one that failed the first time (I think now I know how to correct my problems), and the last lesson of the class which I watched this morning. I should be able to meet my self-imposed goal of being done by the weekend.

This lesson was about coloring a detailed embossed image with watercolor. It's a technique I've used before but not with such a detailed image. Jennifer used the new Altenew "Needlework Motif" set. I'd seen a lot of beautiful projects using the stamp during Altenew's release week, and ordered it. It was sitting on my desk awaiting this opportunity.

I'm very happy with the results. I took my time and used a very small watercolor brush, following the advice to move around the image letting one area dry before watercoloring the area next to it. It's advice I've read many times before, but haven't always heeded. It's clear it's advice worth following. I stuck to four colors of blue and two colors of green all from my Gansai Tambi watercolors. I do think I'm about to splurge on the Altenew set because of it's compact size and the wide range of bright colors. I embossed the image with rose gold embossing powder which is so lovely. Here's a closer look.

We're off to lunch with our couples book group–discussion of Killers of the Flower Moon at one of the member's home afterwards. Later this evening, we're going to the Food Truck Rodeo at the Public Market with good friends. It's our first of the rodeos this summer. Although summer days are waning, the heat and humidity are not, so it still feels like summer for sure. 

The next lesson in Altenew's watercolor class was on using watercolors as ink. It's important in this technique to use concentrated amounts of watercolor which you apply directly to the stamp, and then lightly spritz the stamp with water before stamping onto watercolor paper. Following that you can use a small brush to distribute some of the watercolor and enhance some of the details. I don't have a lot of Altenew's layering stamps (it's a technique I'm still learning to master), but using the detail stamp for the layering was recommended. Actually, the "Build a Flower" Magnolia" worked out pretty well for this technique.

I actually had a lot more trouble turning the piece into a card than I did executing the watercolored flower. I added some black and gold splatters after stamping the sentiment (from Altenew's "Floral Frame" stamp set) and let them dry for over three hours. When I went to adhere the watercolor piece to a card I weighted it down and when I picked it up, some of the black splatters had smeared in the upper left-hand corner! I finally found a Spellbinders die that was the right size to incorporate the flower, the sentiment, and eliminate the smeared splatters. What a pain! I added a gold border and used a Memory Box licorice card. Here's a closer look at the gold border and splatters.

I'm halfway through the videos for the class, and hope to finish it before the weekend. The next technique we learned was watercoloring an embossed sentiment. Looks easy, probably should be easy, but three attempts have hit the circular file. I'm moving on, although I'll probably come back later and try again.

On a whim, I enrolled in Altenew's "Watercolor Basics and Beyond" class this week. It's designed to showcase Altenew's new set of 36 watercolors which look lovely, but I don't own them (yet). It doesn't matter, as I'm already enjoying the class, and have several sets of watercolors to choose from. In lesson 2, Jennifer Raza introduced watercolor washes. I've done these for a variety of card backgrounds, but she added a twist I would never have thought of on my own: pressing a stencil into the watercolor wash and letting it dry. I can tell you when I set it aside to dry overnight, I did not have high hopes for it. It appeared to be a hot mess. It's weighted down with an acrylic block.

Much to my surprise the next morning, I discovered quite a lovely background which was fun to use in creating this card. 

As I often do, I die cut the watercolored piece with the largest of Simon Says "Stitched Rectangles." The die cut sentiment is from Mama Elephant, and the white embossed sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Blue Skies." After they were added to the background, I mounted it all on a True Black  top-folded card.

It's definitely a technique I'll try again, although I didn't seem to have many stencils that I thought would work for this technique.