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.