Sunday, September 14, 2014

Hope Blossoms


Oh I found this most gorgeous flower image at A Day for Daisies this week!  The open lines and flowers look so pretty.  This one is called Painted Flowers 4.    Because it’s a digi, oftentimes you think you can’t watercolour the image, but with care, you can still print it on cardstock and get a great watercolour effect.  For this design I started with the background and got some warm grey re-inker and put a couple of drops onto a lid, then I added some water to the palette and got a really light wash of watered down grey in my brush, keeping the brush pretty wet.  Then I washed the background in.  The big thing is that you have to have a light touch and you only get one swipe at it.  :)  If you come back and try to blend too much (like you would on watercolor paper) your paper will pill.  So, it’s really almost a staining of your paper rather than a painting.  I do sometimes come in and add more color with more concentration of colour and less water, and you can see some of that in the greys above.   

Next I added some sweeps of purple reinker with lots of water in it too.  For fun, when parts of the flower were quite wet I let some really concentrated colour bleed (you can see that at the base of the flower).  I let this dry completely.  


Then, after it was dry I added some prismacolour pencil in the depths of the purple bloom to give it more contrast.  Then I “smudged in some words to the background, “hope trusts, hope believes”.  I wanted it to be faint, and I think if I were to do it again, I’d even make it more faint or blend it with some OMS.  I also splattered some grey reinker onto the design to finish it off.  The sentiment is from an older SU alpha set, (Typeset).  The papers are mish mash of what I had on hand.  Some MME barnboard themed paper, and some other stack I had on hand for the purple. 

A few enamel dots, a corduroy button, some twine and a bit of sewing accent the design.  

This whole “painterly” effect is for this week’s ADFD Challenge, which is really fun.  


6 comments:

Marisa said...

Your flower is gorgeous, Christine! Way to rock the purple and the "water washing" )

KarinsArtScrap said...

wow gorgeous Christine.
Gr Karin

Leslie Miller said...

Gorgeous card, Christine! I can see how this image would be good for watercolor. I have printed on watercolor paper before, too. Images that have a lot of detail within don't work so well, but this one would be great! Love that loose watercolor wash you gave it, and good idea to add more depth with the Prismas!

Pauline said...

Christine, this is gorgeous! I love the watercolour look, love the colours and your layout. Great idea about the prismacolour pencils to add depth. WOW!

Rosy Newlun said...

Brilliant. I love how you let the water do its thing, welling up, running, and creating a one of a kind, beauty of purples ♥

Bajalizzy said...

fascinating colour combo there