Easy artist

I just wanted to share with you just how easy it is to produce beautiful and believable watercolours.  Here are a couple of cards that I made recently.

Now this one I took some time over as it's a birthday card for my gorgeous brother.  I say I took time... because I embossed a layer and I used two layers under the main image and I tied a piece of linen thread around it!  As for the actual image, well it probably took me 10 minutes tops.  I used Stampin' Up! watercolour paper and stamped the birds (from the stunning Wetlands stamp set in the main catalogue) and greeting in StayzOn black ink.  I used this ink as it doesn't run when you wet it.  I then used three different stamp pads and squished a little ink into the lid, using an aquapainter with a bit of water inside I washed the colours across the image.  First I used Baha Breeze for the sky, then I used Crumb Cake for the sand and then I carried on picking out a bit of detail on the sand with more saturated colour from the Crumb Cake, I put a bit more of this on the body of the birds and then finally I finished the sand off using a Colour Spritz tool and my Crumb Cake marker.... be careful to mask off the sky with your hand so you don't get sand flying in the air!!

For the next card I was even quicker.  I used watercolour paper again and stamped the image and the greeting this time using the hostess set Simply Sketched.  I used the same techniques but for the flower I used two shades of red to create a more realistic shading; Real Red all over and then picked up the shading with Cajun Craze.  I guess that this card took me all of 15 minutes from start to finish including cutting the base and mat.  So, next time you feel that watercolouring is too difficult give one of these stamp sets a go, you'll amaze yourself!