Stampin' Up! ~ Colorful Calla Lilies

I have another card to share with you today made with the set Remarkable You.  My cousin just had a birthday and I figured that was a good excuse to try my hand at watercolors again. :)

Can you tell which flower I painted first, second, then last?  My lines weren't as dark and harsh the more I worked it.  I painted the back flower first, then the one on the left and the right one last.  I really like the soft edges I did on the last one.  I'll keep on practicing, but I'm still happy with how they turned out over all. :)

To create this I taped around the edges of my watercolor paper with masking tape using the biggest Stampin' Up! block. Next I stamped the flowers with Sahara Sand.  Yup, with Sahara Sand (I'd use any really light color like Blushing Bride or So Saffron, depending on the color the flower is going to be).  Then I masked both the flowers and stamped the left one again back behind the other two.  I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to position it.  That's one reason my back flower is darker on the edges.  I stamped it with Pear Pizzazz on the stamp-a-ma-jig plastic piece and didn't get the stamp cleaned off well enough before I put on the Sahara Sand, so when I stamped it it was greenish brown...ugg.  I started by coloring the little "nib" in the middle with Daffodil Delight...which I shouldn't have done!  They're usually white if the calla lily is blue.  Too late...I was going with it because the yellow didn't lift as much as I would have liked.  After those were dry I started with the top flower by first getting the top area of the flower wet including the edge of the flower (in this case greenish brown! lol).  Getting the edge wet makes the color bleed and it will blend in with the color your using so it "disappears".  Then I used Island Indigo to color it in.  Basically I put it around the edges of the flower and let the water pull the color in.  That's why it's darker on the outside and lighter as it goes toward the middle of the flowers.  I did that with each part of every flower, making sure that the previous part was dry before going to the next so the colors didn't bleed into any other part of the flower.  I wet each of the stems, then added Pear Pizzazz starting that was diluted with water and before it completely dried added more in, just not quite as diluted.  Once the flower and stems were completely dry I did my background by wetting the whole thing and dropping in Pear Pizzazz by the stems and a very diluted Island Indigo around the flowers.  I made sure I kept the watercolor paper wet so the colors flowed outward.  I wanted the color a little darker closer to the flowers and stems and lighter as it got farther away.  As that was drying I added the "splashes" with my paintbrush using the same watered down colors.  Once it was completely dry (believe it or not I never used my heat gun with this card!!) I pulled off the masking tape and put it on card stock.

Daffodil Delight

Pear Pizzazz

Island Indigo

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Sara

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Supplies use on this card:

Watercolor paper and various paintbrushes from local craft store