Stampendous/Dreamweaver Let's Go Wild - Day 5

No-line watercoloring is the technique I used on the Stampendous Cling PenPattern Giraffe.  I love this technique because it gives you the outline of an image to work from.  The lines literally disappear while watercoloring because the image is stamped in a water-based dye ink.  I used Distress Antique Linen.  

Here's my project for today:

Pretty cool, huh?  This technique is especially beautiful using flower images.  TIP:  For further instruction on this technique, go to YouTube and search 'no-line watercoloring' for some great videos.  The watercoloring technique I used was Tombows scribbled onto Palette Paper with a spritz of water nearby.  I used a slim paint brush rather than an aqua brush as I wanted more control over how much water mixed with the Tombow color. The finished image is blended around the edge with Distress Antique Linen and Vintage Photo.

The stamped image looked like this before I began coloring:

Here's a visual of the Tombows I used for the giraffe, grass and sky background.  I referred to my trusty Pinterest and searched 'watercolor giraffes' and found this image to use as a reference.

Once the giraffe was painted, I began the textured background using Faber-Castel Gelatos.  I used another piece of Gessoed Stampendous Mixed Media Paper and scribbled a color of Gelato one at a time in order to blend each color with my finger.  Once I was satisfied, I dried the panel with a heat tool.  For added texture, I dry embossed it using the Dreamweaver Mosaic Swirls Stencil.  TIP:  When blending out Gelatos with your finger, I found I was leaving fingerprints from holding the paper with my other hand.  To alleviate that I used my Palette Paper to hold the down the panel while I was blending and it worked great!  No more fingerprints!  Try wax paper if you don't have anything else.

Here are the Gelato colors used for the 'jungle' background.  My Gelatos don't have the name of each color printed on them, so a visual will have to suffice.

I knew I'd be embellishing using a variety of Dreamweaver Leaf Dies (Monstera Leaf, Leafy Branch, Petit Fern).  Two of them were cut from Bazil cardstock and one was from my paper stash.  The tag paper is from Authentique Playful and Stampendous Wild Sayings Perfectly Clear Stamp Set was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black.  May Arts jute was tied around the tag.  Tag and Monstera Leaf are mounted with foam squares (Scrapbook Adhesives).

Hope you enjoyed my card today and you'll give this watercolor technique a try if you aren't familiar with it!  It's time to hop on over to the next designer's blog.  I'd love a comment before you go!

Stampendous Blog

Pam Hornschu

Laura Drahozal

Lyn Bernatovich

Amy Hurley-Purdie

Pam Bray

Lea Kimmel