I Discovered Something I Love!

I've been messing around with watercolors lately.  They are so versatile and fun!  As I was looking through one of my Cardmaker magazines to find more ideas for watercolors, I came across this card that used acrylics together with watercolors!  I had seen that page before (and loved it), but this time, I was determined to actually give it a try, and I'm so glad I did!

The card tutorial in my magazine used white acrylic paint, and so that's what I'm using here.  There are so many possibilities with just white, so imagine how many more there are with all the other colors!

I also want to point out that the lizard paper on these cards is from a project I did in art class in 2013 I think?  I copied it onto watercolor paper, and viola, interesting patterned paper to watercolor on!  You could to this with any pattern.  I think it'd be fun to doodle with just a black sharpie all over a piece of paper, and then I could copy it onto watercolor paper as many times as I want in the future!

I decided to put together a tutorial (no surprise there) with two separate cards I made.  Here's the first card (my favoritest).

This was sort of funny.  When watercoloring some other card, I accidentally splattered a spot on this card in my wild gusto for watercolor painting, so I decided to just go with the flow, and do a bunch of those spots all over, so it looks intentional!  Genius!

Then I lightly painted over the whole thing (excluding lizards) with light blue, turquoise, and light green.  The picture below is not very flattering.  I think that was because it hadn't dried all the way at the time of the taking of the picture.

*melodic singing*  A-cry-lic paint!  SING IT!

These are clear rubber stamps, which I love using, because it's so much easier to see exactly where you're placing it on the paper.  I got these specific stamps from Scrap Exchange in Durham, which is a store for exactly what the name implies!  Scrap exchange!  Everything is donated ( I think), and there's a bunch of really cool stuff.  I've only been once, but I'd love to go again.  I thought it was weird at first (it's an art store full of stuff donated by artists - of course it's going to be weird), but by the time  left, I was in love.  Anywho, enough ranting.

This is the last flower I stamped, and by this time, the paint had dried some, so it was thicker, and gave more texture when I pulled the stamp up, which I really like.  You can see it looks less flat than the other two flowers.

*melodic sounds of triumph*

Here is the second!  Same size, same technique, different colors.

I've been doing this splotchy looking effect mucho lately.  It's achieved by wetting the paper one area at a time, and putting down a different color in each spot, making sure to blend them together subtly.  And make sure you blend colors that are next to each other on the color wheel.  As my art teacher says, don't mess with it too much, or it will get muddy.

The white is light, sort of hard to read, but nice and subtle.

*more melodic sounds of triumph*  *higher pitched, by the way*

Here are assorted other cards I made with watercolors + acrylics.

They go together!  Like a puzzle!  A very easy puzzle, but still a puzzle.  Maybe someone is having a hard day and needs a little confidence booster with a puzzle that they're guaranteed to have success with!

In the magazine tutorial that first inspired me for this project, the lady did this really cool thing with watercolor where she let it drip down the page.  I thought it looked pretty amazing, so I tried it (though no the same way she did it), and although it didn't work as well, and didn't look as good as in the magazine tutorial (because I did it a different way), it did work, and I ended up making it look perty great.  So I'm happy with how it turned out.

This is the second attempt at dripping paint down the paper.  I like this even better.  For this, I blew the drips around all over the place so they went to unexpected places in cool formations!

I like this corner detail.  It makes me think, "Splish, splash!"  And then I think of The Thinking Closet's slogan, and I also think of red rain boots and yellow rain jackets and little kids splashing around in puddles.  Specifically puddles in our driveway.  That's just what I think of.  What do you think of when you see this corner?

What will you make?  Have I inspired you to experiment with watercolors and acrylics?  I'd love to see your own creations!