I’m back with another sneak peek from the February Clearly Besotted release and it’s another floral one, well leafy/floral at any rate! I recently got the most delicious set of Gansai Tambi watercolours and was desperate to try them out when the new release arrived on my doorstep – perfect timing! If you are tempted with these watercolours I’d recommend the 36 set as this comes with the gorgeous pearlescent and metallic colours :D Now, I’ve got a lot to learn about watercolouring, I do love it so, but I err on the side of caution and simplicity. I did want to try something a little different and inspired by Dawn Woleslagle I tried this messy/loose effect. First I’ll tell you what I did and then I’ll tell you what I’d like to do next time LOL.

To me the perfect way to show Clearly Besotted’s florals is to white heat emboss them so I stamped the jug and a couple of the stems from the new Simple Silhouettes set with Versamark on Tim Holtz distress watercolor card and heat embossed with Simon Says Stamp white. I painted inside the jug with water and then touched my brush to the lovely pool colour in the Gansai Tambi set and dabbed it in the puddle of water within the jug. Oh boy, the colours are so intense and the paint immediately started to blend and spread beautifully – no work needed by me! I added a little more intense colour in places to give variation and then left to dry. For the stems area I added a loose wash of water over and around the white embossing and gently trailed the area down the side of the jug and then dipped my brush into greens and oranges. I love how this style adds hints to the form and colour and lets the imagination fill in the blanks. I used up the left over paint on my brush to tap some splatters and then also added some gold splatters with Heidi Swapp color shine.

Not wanting to overpower this delicate image I added a couple of strips of washi and stitched some gold sequins in place and finally added the sentiment with Versamark on a scrap of Smoke card and white heat embossed. The panel is then mounted on an Olive card base.

As always when I try something, I’m striving to be better and there’s a lot of room for improvement with my watercoloring. I think in the future I’m going to stamp out two images; take the first image to the point I’m happy and have one in the bag so to speak and then with the second image I’m going to try taking things that step further. If you look at Dawn’s Instagram feed you will see some of her works in progress. I would have stopped way before the finished article and yet I totally love Dawn’s result so I think I need to push myself to keep going. Also, I’ve recently ordered a new journal (like I need another one LOL) and I’m planning on trying some watercoloring in there just for practice. No expectations to make into a card, I don’t even need to finish the piece just taking time to explore and learn. That’s the plan anyway :D

For more inspiration pop by Stephanie for links to the Design Team and our awesome guests this month;  Lucy Abrams,  Jo Nevill and Jen Nelson :D

Supplies

InLinkz.com

Stamps – Clearly Besotted simple silhouettes; Ink – Versamark; Embossing Powder – Simon Says Stamp white; Card – Simon Says Stamp smoke, olive, Tim Holtz distress watercolor; Watercolours – Kuretake Gansai Tambi; Mist – Heidi Swapp color shine gold; Masking Tape – Freckled Fawn mint chevron, foreign newspaper; Sequins – Pretty Pink Posh metallic gold; Tools – EK Success powder tool, heat gun