Sketching over Scarlet Majesty

When I posted cards made with the scarlet majesty stamp last week I mentioned a technique I had used to define the petals a little more. Today’s cards feature the sketched outlines I added after stamping. As with my previous cards I inked the stamp with distress inks or other water-based dye ink. I spritzed the stamp before stamping which creates a loose watercolour look on the image. I like the loose image but admit that some of the definition of the petals is lost. With the image on the stamp (and packaging) as my guide and some artistic license I drew around petals, berries and leaves with a gold gel pen. I didn’t try to stay exactly on the edge of the stamping but close. For the red poinsettia I also drew a rough frame around the image.

I added a small sentiment below the panel in a matching ink. On the red panel above I didn’t try to keep leaves green and petals red; everything is red. On the pink poinsettia below I used a few more distress inks in my initial loose watery impression.

Once again I stamped on hot press watercolour paper inking the stamp with small distress ink cubes and markers. Once the image was dry I used the gold gel pen to sketch the outline. If you look too closely you will see blobs and ink outside the lines but I quite like the overall gold edged effect.

One tip if you try this technique but find yourself trying to be too precise. Hold the gel pen further down the barrel than you normally would and move faster than usual drawing your lines. That way you should achieve a loose sketchy style that pulls the very watery stamped image into better focus.

Hope you’re having a great day. I now need to write some international Christmas cards; it is time to put them in the mail!