An Experiment in Color Theory with Watercolor

Have you ever played around with color theory using watercolor in your cards? This project shows how cool a little experimentation can be! I saw the sketch for Happy Little Stampers at the beginning of the month, and have been wanting to make this exact card ever since. Life and work kept me onto other projects, but I think you’ll agree with me, that it was worth the wait!

The sketch this month was quite colorful, and although I loved it so much that I created six completely different projects from it – yes six, I wanted to share my literal translation with you today. Here’s the original sketch and my card:

To get the best overlapping effect, I knew watercolor would be key. To use dye based ink for this purpose, try using distress inks to watercolor your embossed circles. Distress inks are so translucent in nature that they were perfect for this project. Keep the color wheel in mind when deciding which colors to place where, you don’t want to get a muddied color.

My favorite overlap mixture effect is in the bottom left – the large Picked Raspberry circle overlapping with the Spiced Marmelade and Salty Ocean – Both of those colors gave brilliant combinations with the pink – and surprised me!

I think the best part about this project is that I’m quite excited to try sponging new combinations, and I’m a bit more confident in the colors Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers – two colors that I used to be careful with when blending. Both were big surprises.

Watercolor Circles Tutorial

To get great boundaries for your watercolor – emboss the lined images from Simon Says Stamps: Scribble Flowers – there are 5, perfect for this project. Be sure to use a de-static tool to get rid of all stray pieces of embossing powder.

To watercolor, smoosh your pad onto a craft mat, spritz with water and use a watercolor brush. I used an Aqua Painter. Start with the lightest shades and work to dark. Spread the colors around and keep a color wheel either up on your screen or right next to you as a guide for which colors to combine.

The colors used in this project – Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, Mowed Lawn, Barn Door.

To help pull it all together and pop your images, matte your watercolor paper onto a black matte giving a 1-1/2/16” border. Then pop that panel up onto foam tape.

I’m also entering this into Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Anything Goes challenge! Why not – I love their stamps! 🙂

It’s a super fun project and has me thinking of other ways to overlap objects and watercolor. Time for more experimentations. Have fun with it!

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