water painting...

Hello my wonderful friends!

I hope you have all had a fantastic week!  Anyone hit those Black Friday sales?  

Well, how about finding a comfy spot and relaxing with a little creative goodness?  

Today's tutorial was inspired by this tutorial by Dyan Reaveley. I love the look, however, I couldn't resist throwing in my own CI twist.  Ready for some super fun water painting?

We are going to be working on watercolor paper because it can handle the abuse of lots of water. You are also going to need some dark waterbased dye ink. I prefer working with Distress Inks because I know they react well with water.

Step 1: Cover your watercolor paper with ink. Lay it on thick. You will get the best results using dark colors, but I like to have a little pop of bright or light peeking through.

Step 2: Dry your paper. Heat set it, or walk away for a while. The Distress inks are made to stay wet longer so you can emboss with them. They may feel dry to the touch, but don't let that fool you. (You'll see I rushed things a little...)

Step 3: Rub your dry watercolor paper with an embossing buddy (or other such anti static powder duster).  Again, this is to ensure the embossing powder doesn't get stuck where you don't want it.... (again, I didn't do so well with that step... you'll see.)

Step 4: Stamp an open lined image using a clear embossing ink.

Step 5: Cover with Creative Inspirations Deliquesce powder and tap off. I wasn't careful enough with my drying, so I had lots of stray powder, so I'll show you how to fix that.

Step 6: (if needed) take a fine dry paintbrush and gently wisk away any stray powder. It took some time, but the image cleaned up well.

Step 7: Heat the Deliquesce powder to melt it.

*note: you can just stamp the image with a waterproof ink, but the embossing will give a "well" to hold the water. It just makes it easier to keep the water inside the lines.

Step 8: Use a paint brush or a water brush to paint plain water onto the desired area.  You will want to work in small areas at a time.

Step 9: Let the water sit on the image for 5-10 seconds to activate the ink, then place a paper towel over it and press down. This will lift off the ink, giving it a bleached look.

You can repeat this step multiple times to achieve the desired look (this is why we wanted watercolor paper!). Keep in mind that it will dry a little lighter than it looks right after removing the paper towel.

Step 10: Continue doing this until the desired areas are highlighted. They end up with chalky looking finish. 

This is very effective left there, but let's add a little "WOW!" factor, shall we?

Step 11: Paint the bleached areas with Creative Inspirations paint. 

 Fairy Dust our clear paint, so it won't change the color, only pack it with shimmer.  Absolutely beautiful!

However, Fairy Dust isn't the only color that works well... Here I used Autumn Wheat.  This gives it a delicate gold sheen.

Why stop there?  Silver Frost colored the dragonfly wings for this one. I used Mint for the leaves, Autumn Wheat for the flower, and a very diluted Antique Copper for the center.  When you are using dark colors, add a water to them to make them thinner. This will help keep the bleached look.

So, there you have it... a fun way to literally paint with water. =)

Enjoy!

~Kassi