I love watercolour, simply love it, and I’ve previously been intrigued by gouache (opaque watercolour). So when I got the In Bloom set from Waffle Flower in collaboration with Oana Befort, then I wanted to have a go at playing with this medium again as Oana uses it a lot. I’ll go into the details of this card below, but a couple of things first. Number 1, this In Bloom stamp set is part of a fabulous release from Waffle Flower (more on that below). Number 2, follow Oana – I’m a long-term follower and fan, my mouth waters at her colour choices and her style is spot on! Also, this post is part of a blog hop to celebrate the new release with more details on that below. I’ve linked all supplies at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links used where possible at no cost to you.
WAFFLE FLOWER NEW RELEASE
So here’s a closer look at what is included in the new release from Waffle Flower.
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PLAYING WITH GOUACHE
I stamped the In Bloom image in Whisper ink on Arches Hot Pressed card – I read from Oana, that hot pressed card makes it easier to get a smooth finish with gouache. You can buy a rainbow of gouache colours in tubes but as I don’t use this medium a lot presently then I’ve been achieving the effect by mixing white gouache with my watercolours. The white gouache gives it the gouache like opacity and the watercolours give it the colour. I’d recommend having a tube of white gouache in your stash generally as it is excellent for adding white splatter for backgrounds and often I prefer it to a white gel pen for adding white details too – more opaque and bright white in my experience.
My limited experience has taught me a couple of things:
- Being opaque, gouache doesn’t have the transparency of watercolours I’m used to, which means you need to get your colour choices right in each layer. However, being opaque, you can paint over a mistake, and it won’t be visible. Bonus! It took me a few attempts to get the colour right on the flowers, and this is in part due to …
- … the fact that gouache dries darker than when it is wet, unlike watercolours which dry lighter.
- Rather than relying on translucent layers of watercolours, I built colour from light to dark in progressively deeper shades, for example, using brush strokes from the centre of the flower out over the petals and a few wavy lines in the hair.
- The consistency of the mixture is important, too dilute and you’ll lose the opacity, too thick, and it’s challenging to paint and slightly gloopy. I did find because of the thicker nature of the mix I used a smaller paintbrush than I would have using straight watercolours.
I like the illustrative style of gouache paintings and because I am new to creating this style myself, I heavily relied on Oana’s work for colour choices and style. I enjoyed painting this card and will be looking at more ways, I can include gouache in my projects, and as I do so hopefully develop my style. But for today, I was thankful to have such stunning work from Oana in both the stamp set and beautiful paintings. I can’t thank Waffle Flower enough for making these sets a reality so I can indulge this style of art in my cards.
With the painting complete, I used Faber Castel pencils for a little more depth in places. For the sentiment, I stamped a hello greeting from the Peony Notes set from Karla Jodoin (another fabulous artist), and I can’t wait to break out the flowers from this set into a card too. To keep the consistency, I stamped the greeting on the hot pressed card with Versafine Onyx Black ink and then trimmed out and added over the panel with foam adhesive.
I added the panel to a card base cut and scored from Neenah Desert Storm card in the 100lb weight for sturdiness and then accented the card with Love Potion, Fairy Wings and Dragon Scales dream drops and a twine bow.
BLOG HOP
As mentioned above, this post is part of a blog hop to celebrate the new Waffle Flower Release. Hopefully, you’ve arrived here from the Waffle Flower blog, and if not, then that’s a great place to start.
To celebrate the blog hop, Waffle Flower is giving away $25 gift certificates to THREE lucky winners. You can leave a comment on this blog and along the hop by 11:59 pm ET on June 8th 2019 for your chances to win. Winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the posts in this blog hop and will be announced on the Waffle Flower blog on 6/10/2019.
Now it’s time to hop on over to …
Cathy Zielske!!
SUPPLIES
You can find links to the supplies I’ve used below; click on the picture or shop icon to get taken directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you! Items marked with an asterisk (*) were provided by a store or the manufacturer. You can read my affiliate and product disclosure here. I genuinely appreciate your support.
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PIN ME
Summary of the project which gives all the views of the card in one photo :D I’d love if you pinned and called by on Pinterest :D
Fabulous coloring, lovely card.
Your card turned out beautiful. I have tried dabbling in gouache after seeing Lindsey Weirich’s videos. I am no artist by no means but I love to experiment. It is nice but I do prefer the watercolors. Your card is very lovely and I love that stamp. That little girl in the flower is adorable.
You always rock it, girl!
Lovely card and lovely colouring. Tfs.
So pretty!
Loving watching your adventures in water colouring.
The card and the stamp set that inspired it.
Cheers
Lisa