Quick Watercolour Stamping

For those “oops” moments when you need a quick card, here’s a quick watercolour stamping technique for speed colouring your piece.

This is a donation promotion as part of the Chocolate Baroque DT with some of their latest releases. Thoughts listed herein are entirely the authors own opinion based upon using the supplies in practice.

Affiliate links are used across our site and help to keep this blog going. Affiliate links do not cost you any extra and do not inform our opinions on products. This post contains affiliate links, and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. For a full list of current links, please see our Affiliate page.

Page Transparency Statement

This card uses the Gerbera and Friends stamp set but instead of colouring the Gerbera image as a Gerbera, we can change it up into a sunflower. Sunflowers are on all our minds at the moment, so the sentiment of “peace” is apt. Now for the main technique…

Quick Watercolour Stamping

First Impression

You will need a stamp platform for this technique. Start with a piece of A6 card that can take a lot of water: watercolour card or mixed media card is great for this. I use the All Media Card from Papermill Direct which I keep as a pre-cut stash in A6, A5, A4 and 12×12″ sheets. Pop this into your platform “upside down” as we will be stamping off the edge. Align your Gerbera stamp so it sits halfway on the longest edge. Your stamp will remain mounted until all impressions have been made

Ink up the stamp petal area with warm yellow coloured dye ink, and spritz your stamp with water so you get a little puddling on the stamp. Stamp your image, and don’t rush the impression. Lift up and using a clean damp brush feather the outside edge of your impression. If your card can’t take too much water, you can heat set it at this stage. However, it is better to move onto the next impression…

Second Impression

This time we are going to ink up the centre lightly with brown/green ink. Again, mist the stamp with water, but be a little lighter this time so not all detail is lost. Stamp the image, again resting a moment in the downwards position so the brown and yellow can blend.

You can use a clean damp brush to blend out any harsh lines between the yellow and brown. Heat set the image thoroughly at this stage to keep your next impressions clean.

Third Impression

Stamp your whole image with a butterscotch toned dye ink or permanent ink. Heat set this impression if your image isn’t immediately dry.

Fourth Impression

Ink up just the centre and some of the shading in brown ink. This will make the centre pop for the main petals.

You can now unmount the Gerbera stamp.

Finishing the image

Next, let’s use the splatter stamp from the same set. Mount this into your platform or use a block. Ink up in the yellow and spritz. Stamp the image, then use a clean, damp brush to draw out the splurges on one side to give the feeling of movement. I was thinking like pollen, almost as if the flower is sneezing it out (I was having a bad hayfever day LOL).

Cutting the sentiment

On your ScanNCut or in your design software, add “p”, “e”, “a” and “c” to your mat. Make any tweaks to your letters you wish. Duplicate the “e”. Layout your letters into word, making sure each letter overlaps the previous letter. The baseline can stagger vertically though to give an unstable feeling. Peace is fragile after all. The baseline is equivalent to the lines on lined paper – its the line your letters sit on. Once these are arranged, merge them together. You are then going to cut the sentiment twice in two different card colours. If you want to cut more to add solid depth, that will work great too. If you are going to cut from the back of your card, remember to flip your text. Stick the two colours together offset, this gives a drop shadow effect without using foam tape or tabs.

Assembling the Quick Watercolour Card

Mount the stamped piece onto the same colour card as the shadows of your sentiment. This goes towards the top left of the card so each border is different to the others. This will always give your cards a dynamic feel and ties back into the movement of our “pollen”.

The sentiment can then be placed in-line with the centre of your flower, or sit just below your pollen to avoid blocking it if necessary.

This clean and simple card is great for when you are in a rush with little time for colouring.