Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Water Color Marker Winter Foliage

For my birthday, I used the gift certificates I received and bought myself a new set of Kuretake Art & Graphic Twin Markers.  They are a Water-based Dye Ink which reacts beautifully with water.  I was inspired by add them to my art arsenal after taking an online Make Merry Holiday Card Class with Julie Ebersole.



Julie demonstrated a lovely marker technique on Acrylic Stamps ... so I wanted to do a riff on that technique using the gorgeous red rubber of Technique Junkies Winter Foliage background stamp.  Remember, you can use my code TJ10Stephanie for 10% off your entire Technique Junkies store order.

Rather than color precisely, I used the brush end of the marker and just scribbled all over the back of my stamp, blending several colors together as I went.


I attached the stamp where I wanted it on my MISTI before I started coloring, then when the stamp was covered with ink, I spritzed a few times with water and stamped onto watercolor paper.


I was able to pull two prints from the stamp ... the first print is the original and the one still on the MISTI was made by spritzing with water a second time (no additional coloring) and stamping.  The red rubber releases the ink more thoroughly than the acrylic, so you don't get as many impressions before coloring again, but I love the subtle variation of the two images.


This is my finished group of images ... I love the ethereal effect you get from this Winter Foliage image with a few more spritzes of water ... you really can't go wrong.


For the first one, I just trimmed it and attached it to an A4 Kraft Card Base.  I was able to stamp the All is Calm Sentiment directly on to the inky background.

I just love how those ink colors blend together ... just like all of the real green and green-blue variation you see in all the different kinds of holiday foliage.

For the next one, I used the colors from the Sunday Stamp Winter's Breath Color Challenge.


I mounted my stamped image on a darker green before attaching to a rosy pink card base.


I colored the berries with two shades of marker and then spritzed with water again to soften the overall effect of the design.


I added the same Technique Junkies All is Calm Sentiment and a wrap of pale ribbon inspired by the Inspiration Photo.


For the next card, I used one of the original darker prints and splattered with with shimmering white paint.  I didn't get quite the contrast I'd hoped for (need to get a better opaque white paint for splatters), but I still loved the overall shimmery effect.


After loving the effect of the shimmering paint, I decided to see what would happened if I sprayed the entire stamped image with Shimmering Bliss Spray ... I chose Miami Vice Shimmering Bliss Spray on one of the secondary stampings.


That gorgeous shimmer is so hard to capture in a photograph ... but trust me, this baby has all over shimmery beauty.  I stamped the A Very Merry Christmas Sentiment directly on the background with Black Ink.


I hope you'll give coloring your background stamps a try.



6 comments:

Cheri said...

These are all gorgeous, Stephanie and what great techniques.

Melissa Grant said...

All of these are just lovely! The one with pink is just right for our color challenge...Thanks for sharing with us at SUNDAY STAMPS :)

Karen said...

Stunning.

Helen said...

Stephanie, your work with this background stamp is stunning. I have this stamp and love it...now you've given me even more reasons to love it! tfs

Heather said...

Wow, these are all totally gorgeous - thanks so much for sharing your process on all of them, too! Truly lovely results - I have to try more spritzing with markers! Thanks so much for playing at Sunday Stamps!

Annette Elliott said...

Stephanie, how fun to see your creations step by step. Super fun to have new goodies to play with and your birthday markers look like a lot of fun and made cool effects on the watercolor paper. Lovely is the results. Thanks so much for playing along with the color challenge at Sunday Stamps! Happy Holidays!