Florals on Black

I haven’t used this eye catching technique in a while but I really should try it more often. These two cards were made as part of my Floral Faves online class, a lesson about using metallic watercolours on black watercolour paper. Maybe black watercolour paper has been around for a long time but when I first found it several years ago I was very keen to try it.

As you can imagine the paints need to be somewhat opaque to show up on black. I use Coliro and Finetec metallic watercolours (two names but all made by Finetec). I have also been given some Beam metallic watercolours which I will try out soon. I used Stonehenge Black watercolour paper for these cards and it worked well. It is very soft so I am careful if using tape on the edges as it lifts the surface off. I just work on a piece slightly larger than I need so I can trim it down to size after painting. I recently bought some of the Van Gogh brand so I will report back once I have tried it.

All these designs were made with embossed outlines making it easier to stay inside the lines. One feature of these cards that I quite like and need to remember to incorporate is the little painted strip where I embossed a sentiment over the top. It’s a trick that doesn’t have to be used only on a black background; I could paint a strip on any colour then emboss on top of it. For the cards featured today I used Penny Black ‘radiant’ set and Concord & 9th ‘fine line florals’ and ‘meadow blossoms’

If you have metallic watercolours let me know in the comments your favourite ways to use them.