Watercolour day 8 - more faux hand painting.

Today was all about more techniques to create the illusion that a painting has been hand drawn/painted from scratch. I was really desperate to try the techniques mentioned and am really happy with the results.

First is the stunning Chrysanthemum from Uniko Studio (this actually just has to be my favourite stamp collection).

This Chrysanthemum is in fact painted petal by petal (it took AGES). I then decided once it was dry that it would look lovely with a nice glittery effect to it. I therefore painted a layer of water over the top, mixed with white Perfect Pearls. I wanted to create a picture frame around the flower so I die cut and then trimmed around the edges two squares. I attached one directly on the the watercolour paper and then mounted the other on top using foam pads. I really like the result of this. I spent ages deciding what my backing card should be - a block colour didn't look right and white was too stark so I decided to mix gold perfect pearls with water and created paint splashes all over the panel. Again, there was something not quite right, so I added some pink watercolour paint splashes too which tied in nicely with the colour of the flower. Once dried and assembled, the sentiment was added and of course some bling by way of small sequins in pink and gold and some pearls in pale pink. Viola. I have tried to capture the sheen on the flower which I think I have managed to pick up on camera! My photo location isn't great - usually go to my summerhouse in the garden, but my little boy getting up to mischief today and so I had to just make do with photographing in the kitchen!!

My second card uses the negative of a die cut as a template for some free hand painting. I previously used this snowdrop stamp on an Easter card, but my husband very kindly (!!!) told me that it looked more of a sympathy card. I can kind of see his point actually and certainly, once I had finished painting the below card, it naturally developed in to a sympathy card. This is the first time that I have properly used the tubes of paint I inherited. Whilst they are a bit more of a faff than just using paint pans out a set, or using pencils, I actually much preferred them. The colours were much easier to dilute to the tones I wanted I felt.

Here is my card - 

When photographing this card (although again it is not in my preferred location), I decided to take the advice from a recent post from Debby Hughes, where she talks about how she goes about positioning her cards for photographing. She explained that tilting the card allows much more detail to be seen, but tilting it too much right or left, makes the card seem as though it is only intended for the person standing on the right or left…..by just tilting it ever so slightly, you capture the best of both worlds. I think she is absolutely right!!! Thank you so much Debby - I will be doing this from now on!!!!!

Many thanks for taking a look and as always, and comments are so much appreciated xx