Watercolored Blooms + Thank You with Rubeena

Hello, friends! Rubeena here from A Rare Ruby. Today, I have another floral card for you using a new color palette and a few tips on getting out of your comfort zone.

Flowers are my favorite stamps to color, and watercoloring is a favorite medium as of late. I started by stamping the large floral cluster from Lovely Blooms onto watercolor paper. When watercoloring, I like to lay down some light colors, which is termed as underpainting. I learned this from one of my very close friends. It enhances the colors that you lay over it.

When you work on a project, how much thought do you give to the colors you’ll use? It can get overwhelming. I have so many watercolors and sometimes I have to limit myself to two to four colors so I can create a piece that coordinates. I actually did some washes in several muted shades of red, purple, blue, and green. I initially started with green, red, and purple and added indigo since it went well with the purple. This led me to use various values of these colors to watercolor the rest of the image in layers (also known as glazing).

Next time you color, start with two colors and add another shade or two that you normally don’t reach for. If you notice in my latest projects, I have been attempting different colors. It is okay to mess up. It is okay not to be completely happy with it. The point is that you’re teaching your brain to look at things differently and that can only help you to improve as an artist. Some people keep doing the same thing over and over, and that’s okay, too. But if you want a different result, you have to be brave enough to try something different. You can do that in small steps.

For “basic” cards, you can leave this floral image as a flat one-layer card and simple add a sentiment in whatever manner that you like (stamped, embossed, die-cut, etc.). I like different looks for my flowers so I cut off parts of the cluster so that I could rearrange the bouquet. This is a great way to “stretch” your stamps. Now, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with the base. I decided to use one of the cover dies and a watercolor wash background that I had sitting around. I die-cut the sheet with Halftone Dots Cover and trimmed it down so it would fit over a dark gray card base. I didn’t want to use a white card base since I wanted to go for a dark mood. For the sentiment, I die-cut the word “thank you” from Mini Thank You Coordinating Dies from black cardstock four times and stacked them with multi medium matte. Finally, I mounted everything over the base.

Don’t forget to try something new and have fun with it.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies:

Lovely Blooms
Halftone Dots Cover
Mini Thank You Coordinating Dies