Sharing Summer Cardmaking Challenge #2
Watercolor Waves
Good day, fellow crafters. Today I am sharing with you my entry into this week’s Sharing Summer Cardmaking Challenge! This challenge is being hosted by @thatcraftygolden and you can find their page on Instagram, and is running from July 9th - September 3rd. This week's theme is Watercolor Waves with the main goal to feature ocean themes along with watercoloring skills, as the focal point of your designs. If this theme sparks your creativity, join us in the fun! Don't forget to use the hashtag #sharingsummercards, as we can't wait to admire your creations. I hope you enjoy it.
What can I say? This challenge had me the moment it indicated water coloring as a technique for the card design. I guess I am just a sucker for the smooth way the colors turn out.
To create this card I decided to go with an under-the-waves theme and use a fairly recent stamp club set I had purchased from Tonic Studios called A Whaley Great Stamp Set. I really liked the cute stamps on the set and as a diver, who has dived with whale sharks, they really spoke to me.
The first step was to create the backgrounds for the individual components of my design. Normally my preferred method of water coloring images is to use embossing powders first as a resist and to paint within the lines of the embossing powder once it is heat set. Today I instead used some of my premium watercolor paper and my Nuvo brand watercolor pigments to paint out the areas of color that I wanted to use so they were all uniform in appearance then allowed it to dry. Once that had occurred, using some pigment ink, I stamped out the components. This particular set does come with a set of corresponding dies but I didn’t like the border being outside of my stamped lines so opted to take the time to fussy cut out each component. I then set all the pieces aside.
The background itself, also watercolored as a full piece, was cut to its final dimension with a stitched slimline die from my collection and adhered to a black mat for visual contrast. Then that combined piece was adhered to a white slimline card base. I gave it just a little time for the glue to dry and then using the small school of fish stamp and some dark blue Gina K ink stamped out a few locations on the card. To get the lighter blue fish I just stamped the stamp a second time without reinking. At this point, I used a white pen to draw in a few wavey lines to give the illusion of a flowing current and stamped the sentiment, which came from the same set. Lastly, I assembled all of the foreground elements onto the card and made sure to raise the whales up on pop dots to provide dimension.
