The Flowers are Coming!

The Funkie Junkie Inspiration Ave is blooming with inspiration!  The team is highlighting flowers in anticipation of the flowers bursting open for spring!  

I wanted to play with my new watercolor pencils in Scorched Timber, Jet Black and White.  I decided to play around with limited color and just highlight the neutrals with the flowery images. 

I love the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz set Floral Trims.  They let you color away with the beautiful lined flowers. 

My goal was to see if I could use the brown, black and white watercolor to highlight the flowers and just use accent colors in the background and leaves. 

For my circular image I stamped the image using a distress ink in soft gray. I was hoping to highlight the image using watercolor pencils and shading. 

After stamping the image I used the scorched timber to add a touch of color around the petals of the flower and the green watercolor pencil in the leaves.  I then used a water brush to soften the edges of coloring. I came back with a yellow watercolor pencil to add a touch of yellow to the center of the flowers.  I used the water brush to blend that and soften the edges.

After I finished with my coloring and blending I decided to come back with the black watercolor pencil and add the lines again to the image to really make it pop.  I also shaded around the outside edges of the images with a hint of gray and blended with the water brush. 

Sometimes when I finish a project and the colors are softer and don't really pop out at me I will clear emboss the entire image.  This will make the colors richer and more intense.  I did that with this image. I sponged the entire surface after it was completely colored and covered it with clear embossing powder. I then heat set the embossing powder. Sometimes this takes two coats to get a clear finish. 

I then mounted the circle image on several circles before placing it on a black cardstock base and adding the coordinating butterfly and stamped sentiment. 

For my next experiment, I stamped the floral image with black archival ink on white cardstock.

Then I shaded and blended with the watercolor brush inside the flowers using the black watercolor pencil. I added a bit more shading with the brown watercolor pencil.  Blending each time with the water brush.  I came back and added a  heavier shading of black around the inside of the image.  

For the leaves I used the green watercolor pencils and colored around the inside and blended with the water brush.  

Next I decided to bring in pink around the outside of the flowers and a golden brown around the leaves.  I colored on the outside of the lines and then used a water brush to soften the edges and blend the color out. 

I finished the image with a black cardstock base and a stamped sentiment. 

I really wanted to use the white watercolor pencil and I tried a few different ideas and this was the one that worked most successfully.  I started with stamping the image using versamark and clear embossing powder to create an outline of the image on black cardstock.

After that I took the white watercolor pencil and shaded and blended the white inside the flower.  This made the white disappear into the black cardstock.  I came back and colored again with more pressure and further out to add more shading.  I didn't use the water brush as I wanted the white to pop off the black background in my second round of coloring.

To make the flowers really pop from the background I came back with a white gel pen and outlined the image to make is move and stand out.

Then the sentiment was stamped with Versamark watermark and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  I mounted the image on white and then a black card base. 

Not your typical spring flowers but I had fun exploring the use of white, black and browns with the flowers. 

Suzz

Products: 

• Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz - Floral Trims
• Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Tiny Text
• Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz  Love Notes
  
• Ranger Tim Holtz Watercolor Pencils Black Soot & Picket Fence 
• Ranger Tim Holtz Watercolor Pencil - Scorched Timber 
• Ranger Tim Holtz Watercolor Pencil Set #1 
• Versamark Watermark Ink
• Ranger Clear Embossing Powder
• Ranger White Embossing Powder
• Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black 
• Ranger Distress Oxide Ink - Hickory Smoke
  
• Black Cardstock