Ginivir’s Sweet You Page

 

Materials

 

• Watercolour paper, 25 x 25 cm

• Patterned paper (L’encre et L’image)

• Offcuts of coloured paper, including black cardstock paper and some paper with lines of text

• Watercolour paints (Scrapbuttons Aquar’ELLES: fire engine red, green, green/yellow, moss green, soft green, citrine, yellow, graphite)

• Fine-tipped watercolour brush

• Sticky foam pads

• Stickers (Cosmos Cricket)

• Sweet You die cutting die, rub on transfers, stencils, yellow stick-on label, adhesive dots, text strips (Kesi’art)

• Foliage die cutting die (Memory Box)

• Stamps (L’encre et l’image)

• Gelato pigment sticks (Faber Castel)

• Foam pad (Ranger Cut N Dry)

• Black sewing thread

 

Instructions

 

After you have chosen the photo that you want to work with, take a sheet of watercolour paper and position the photo on top in the place that you will want it to go. I positioned mine towards one of the upper corners of the page. Next take a watercolour paintbrush soaked in water and stand the photo on a small object like a small paint pot, so that it is raised up a few centimetres above the page, then wet the paper in the area all around the edge of the space where the photo was. Start painting pale colours all around this border, making sure that the paint extends underneath the photo. Your colour scheme should be based on the colours in your photo.

 

After it has dried, add another layer of watercolour paint, this time with bolder highlights of colour. Add some splashes of watercolour paint by gently tapping your brush to flick paint onto the page.

 

After the page has dried again, stick on your photo using double sided sticky tape. Take up your watercolours again and add even more bold highlights of colour, this time let the painted section spill over onto the photo so as to link it up to the rest of the page. Use a fine-tipped brush to extend some of the lines that you see in the photo out onto the page.

 

Get out your stencils, some Cut N Dry foam and some gelato pigments in colours which will go well with your photo. Stick to the same colours that you used to extend the lines from your photo out onto the page. A good tip is to just use parts of your stencils and not necessarily the whole patterns. If your paint runs you can remove it with water on your paintbrush and then touch the area up again with watercolour afterwards. I chose a leaf motif because there were leaves in my photo. Add some little touches of watercolour on top of the gelato stencillings.

 

Next create a new area of colour diagonally opposite the area you have been working in. I always like to use this kind of diagonal positioning to create an upwards focus to the page. In this new area I add a more random mix of colours and shapes using the same colours as before.

 

Stick your sheet of waterproof paper onto a slightly larger sheet of patterned paper, positioning it slightly off-centre. Add some staples around the edges.

 

Retouch the sections of your work at the edges of the page to extend your watercolours onto the patterned paper, and add some small splashes of paint from your brush, then dry the page again.

 

Go back to your stencils, gelato pigments and Cut N Dry pad and extend your vertical lines onto the patterned paper. Also, use your foliage stencil to extend your coloured area at the bottom of the page onto the patterned paper.

 

Choose a die cutting die in a foliage pattern and some paper to match your scheme then cut it out using your die cutting machine. Loosely wind up a short length of black sewing thread and slip it and the cut out underneath the edge of the photo.

 

Cut out two small strips of paper with text on, in colours matching your scheme. Take these and a rub on transfer and position them around the photo. Select some stickers with words on and attach them to the coloured area in the bottom corner and under the watercolour paper next to the photo, again accentuating the contrasting diagonal positioning on your page.

 

Glue down the thread and the cut out then attach the paper strips of text over the top using sticky foam pads. Stick on some adhesive dots to match the colour scheme, both under the photo and by the painted area on the other side of the page.

 

Take a small label in a matching colour and cut it in two then stick it on the patterned paper, sticking out from underneath the watercolour paper.

 

Add some little splashes of colour from your paintbrush and allow them to dry. Use some dark watercolours to add some shadow to the edges of the cut outs and highlight them on the page. Do this on both the patterned paper and the watercolour paper.

 

Add some final touches of colour to the edges of the patterned paper.

 

Finally, die cut your two words to make the title using black cardstock. Stick the first one across the photo and the watercolour paper and the second across the patterned paper and the painted area at the bottom of the page.

 

 

Tips

 

When working with watercolours, always start with the lightest or palest colours and work up to darker ones. Don’t try to get something dark straight away, instead take time to build up layers of colour on top of each other using increasingly less diluted colour. It is very useful to know how to take the time to build up colour like this. I start by putting water on the paper as this helps the colour to diffuse across bigger areas. After this I focus on more precise strokes, working with a different brush.

 

To get the best results with watercolours select a suitable type of paper to work on, such as watercolour paper or another kind of paper which is thick enough to cope with getting wet.

 

For this project, my choice of colours and stencils was inspired by the colours and shapes in my photo. There are vertical lines visible in the photo so I chose to highlight these by extending them and adding some more. There were also some leaves so I added some more of those too. But that could well have been other shapes and your chosen photo will suggest ideas to you.

 

I love differing shades of colour layered upon each other; I love intriguing subtleties in a colour scheme. All the elements come together to create a unified page but when you look close up you discovered all sorts of interesting things, like little splashes of colour or stamps that you hadn’t really noticed.

 

If you can’t get hold of Scrapbuttons watercolours then try working with another brand.

 

If you can’t get hold of paper with lines of text especially for art projects, then create your own by taking some plain paper and writing your own text.

 

If you have a stock of stencils, dig out some interesting designs, otherwise you can make some temporary ones from die cuts.

 

If you don’t have a die cutting machine then stock up on shop-bought cut outs.

 

If you don’t have any rub-on transfers then use stamps to add a pattern, shape or word.