Manuela’s Watercolour Background Page

 

Materials

 

• Watercolour paper

• Parcel tag, white or coloured

• Old dictionary

• Watercolour paints (or liquid inks)

• Watercolour inks (Aladine Izink dye ink or Ranger Distress ink)

• Waterproof ink (Tsukineko Versafine)

• Black Felt-tip (Posca)

• Faber-Castell PITT artist pen S black

• Glitter glue (Ranger Stickles)

• Ink stamps (to be used to add writing or patterns in colour to decorate the page. Here I used stamps from L’encre et L’image)

• Adhesive enamel dots (Ephemeria)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Instructions

 

Step 1

 

Start with a sheet of watercolour paper, 30 x 30 cm

 

Select a range of colours, either watercolour paints or liquid inks, based on the colours in your photo.

 

Step 2

 

Dip a paintbrush in water and make some circular shapes on your page, then add some colour with the tip of the brush and it should spread out across the surface of your circles.

 

Add some swirling tendrils of colour using a rather wet, fine-tipped brush and fairly diluted watercolour (or ink). You can add a little more colour if you need to.

 

Complete this stage by adding some little splashes from a brush dipped in watercolour paint tapped over the page and then spraying a mist of water over the top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3

 

While the background is still drying, add some pattern stamps in black waterproof ink (e.g. Versafine) and add colour to them with watercolour paint. Play around a bit with your pigments and the level of dilution so that the colours seem to melt into each other in places.

 

Put a wash of gesso over two pages of text cut from a book and use this as a background to stick your photo onto.

 

If you are like me and you sometimes have to camouflage the occasional mistake or misplaced splash, then use an artistically positioned label, some masking tape or some cuts of patterned paper. Don’t throw away your background page; you can normally find a way to cover up any little slip-ups.

 

Step 4

 

Once the page is dry, stamp on some patterns or text using colours matching the watercolours you have already used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Step 5

 

Attach your photo to the page and add your embellishments. Draw a line of think black felt-tip pen (e.g. Posca pen) around your photo to highlight it, then do the same with a finer tipped black pen around some of your other elements, such as the label and cut outs.

 

Add some more patterns using stamps and black waterproof ink (e.g. Versafine), such as some snowflakes and some dotted lines.

 

Finish off by attaching some enamel dots to add a more three-dimensional touch.