Floral medley

Sweet Spring has arrived, on the Penny Black blog that is! Sweet Spring is Penny Black’s brand new release and as you can imagine it’s full of flowers. I’ve been having fun using some of my favourite techniques to colour those flowers so let’s take a look at today’s blooms. This big stamp is called ‘flower medley’ and I’ve paired it with a new sentiment from the ‘grateful heart’ set. (list and links below)

I embossed the flower medley stamp on hot pressed watercolour paper with white powder then used my watercolour pencils to paint in and around all the leaves and flowers. The embossing keeps everything contained so I was able to pick up colour from my pencils with a waterbrush, paint a petal or leaf then drop in more of the same colour for some depth or a different colour to create some blended areas. Once all the flowers and leaves were coloured I painted around them all with a grey watercolour pencil.

Next I used a trick I occasionally employ to flatten my watercoloured panels. I turned on my minc, popped the panel inside a folded piece of computer paper and ran it through the minc on a low heat setting. It ironed my panel nicely but also melted and removed some of the embossing. If I had used an embossing powder with some colour or shine then I wouldn’t have wanted it to disappear but clear or white embossing just masks the white paper underneath so melting it off didn’t change my design at all. The panel ended up very smooth so I was able to overlap the floral design with a sentiment stamped in versafine smokey gray ink. I matted the panel with co-ordinating pink cardstock and then added it to a square cream card base.

Now click on over to the Penny Black blog for the full reveal and a giveaway!

Supplies

Stamps

Inks: versamark, versafine smokey gray

Pencils: Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils

Paper: hot pressed watercolour paper, pink cardstock

Also: opaque white embossing powder, minc foil applicator