Northwest Stamper

Tag: watercolor crayons

  • Getting Back to Watercolor Crayons

    When I was asked recently to put together a card using Watercolor Crayons, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go; but I decided I was up for the challenge.  The person really liked a card by Meg Loven using the Simply Soft set and so I looked around my craft room and spied the new Reason to Smile stamp set (its coming out in July as part of a special promotion where you can get it for only $5 with any $50 order!).  It is a new 2-step stamping set and I thought it would be fun to try with the crayons.

    Reason to Smile watercolored stamp set

     

    I used the Watercolor Crayons two different ways:  coloring directly onto the stamp (for the petals and stem) and picking up color from the crayon using a waterbrush and coloring on the paper.  I have to say, making this card has renewed my love affair with Watercolor Crayons!

    Thanks to this tip from Meg, I had MUCH BETTER success coloring on my stamp.  I grabbed my aqua pen for the first time in ages – I normally am loyal to my blender pen – and moistened the surface of the rubber before I colored with the crayon.  Boy does that help the crayon color nicely on the surface!  Then you can stamp and it is super pretty.

    I then brushed my aqua pen along the back of the crayon (the flat end) and then used that to paint color around my stamped image on the paper.  Doesn’t it give such a pretty look?

    Reason to Smile watercolored close up

     

    The only other tip I have for you today, is if you are going to color on your paper like I did with the blue, you really really  want to be using watercolor paper!  You will be using so much water doing this that regular cardstock will warp a lot.

    So, there you go… now grab your watercolor crayons and give it a try!  Its probably way more fun than you remember it being. 🙂

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    Reason to Smile Thank You Card Recipe
    Stamps:     Reason to Smile, Curly Cute
    Ink: Stazon black, Old Olive
    Paper: Daffodil Delight, Pool Party, Watercoloring Paper
    Accessories: Daffodil Delight seam binding, Brights watercolor crayons, aqua pen, stampin’ dimensionals, basic rhinestones

  • More Watercoloring Card Samples–crayons & markers

    Today I wanted to share a couple more samples from my watercoloring class.  In my last post, I shared a card we did using chalks and for today, I thought I’d show some cards using watercolor crayons and markers.  As you can see, the medium you use for your watercoloring gives you totally different effects!

    Also, one more PSA – I always tell folks that the paper you stamp on makes a huge difference in your image quality and with watercoloring that is especially true.  Both of the techniques I ‘m showing you today need watercolor paper.  With the crayons, your image will not stamp well on the semi-gloss of Whisper White paper and with markers, you’ll tend to have your paper pill up or curl.

    Watercolor Crayons

     

     

    This card uses the watercolor crayons and I’ll admit it isn’t the best sample in the world; but it shows you how the crayons give you a more artsy watercolor look. With the crayons you color directly on your stamp and then mist it with water before stamping.  So, depending on how much you color on your stamp and how much water you use, you will get a more or less “blurred” image when you stamp.

    tip: Be careful not to completely douse your stamp with water when you are wetting it because you can either have your colors run together or become so diluted that they barely color your page.

    Watercoloring with markers

     

     

    This is one of my favorite watercoloring techniques because it is so easy and I really like the look you get from it.  This technique uses markers to lay down your color and then using your blender pen to pull the color around to fill in your stamped area.  When I was a kid, I used to outline my pictures in my coloring books and then color in lightly inside the lines and so it gave me a similar effect as I got on this card.  So, maybe this has always been my thing. 🙂

    tip: You will want to pick a medium to dark color marker for this technique.  If you use a lighter shade, you won’t really see the colors very well as you blend them into your open spaces.

    Well, I hope this gave you some new ideas to try!  They are all so different and fun that it is worth trying them all!

    If you haven’t done any watercoloring before, pick up some blender pens, watercolor paper, and your favorite color method (like ink pads, markers, chalks, etc).  Need help deciding which to start with?  Send me a note at jennifer@nwstamper.com and I’ll help you figure it all out and get them on their way to you!

     

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  • Watercoloring Techniques: Inks and Watercolor Crayons

    Each month I run at least one technique class to give folks a chance to try something different or learn new ways to use something they might already have.  Well, a recently ran my popular watercoloring technique night during which we made 5 cards, each using a different method for watercoloring.  It was so much fun to create the cards and even more fun to see the different ways people used the techniques on their cards.  This week, I thought I would share some of the cards we did at this class.

    Watercoloring with Inks

    This is your basic watercoloring technique that most people, if they have only done watercoloring one way with stamping, it is this method.  To do this technique, you want to squeeze your ink pad so that some of the ink gets deposited onto the inside of the lid of your stamp pad.  Once you open your ink pad, you will see the ink deposited on the lid and you can lift it off with a blender pen or aqua pen.  Then use your pen like it was a marker to color your card.  In this case, we did a sweet Build-a-Bear cheery card.

    Watercoloring with Watercolor Crayons

    Next we did a card using the hostess set – Because I Care and the Watercolor Crayons.  Now, this is a medium that I often completely forget about but there is so many cool things you can do with watercolor crayons.  I won’t go into all of them today because that would make this post way to long but if there is interest, I can highlight them another day.

    Anyway, for this card we did a technique I haven’t done in a long time.  We used the crayons to color directly onto the stamp rubber – placing all of our colors on the image at the same time.  Then you spritz your rubber with water and stamp.  The water you spray on the rubber interacts with the wax of the watercolor crayons to create the more classic watercolor look.

    I just had to show you too the other thing we did with the card that was just for fun and I guess thinking back on it now, was a theme with this card: spritzing things.

    We used the gold Smooch Spritz to add gold shimmer to the background So Saffron paper.  Its fairly tone on tone but is sooo pretty in person.  Here is an attempt at a photo to show you what I mean.

    Cards 3-5
    Check back later this week as I post the other cards we created in this class.

     

    Interested in trying these cards & techniques out yourself?

    In Person
    Do to multiple requests, I’m running my class again on March 28th in the Mountain View, CA area.  I’d love to have you join us. Check out the full details on my meetup site.

    Online
    Or, if you are not local, purchase the supplies for these techniques from my online store and send me an email.  I’ll send you written tutorial instructions for these cards for FREE!  Not sure what you need, email me at jennifer@nwstamper.com and I’ll send you a basic supply list and you can see what you have in your stash and what you would still need.