Saturday, June 30, 2007

Watercolor with markers Tutorial.

This tutorial is especially for Shanon and Brandy. I hope everyone enjoys it though.

Here's the tools I used.
  • You can see I have a few brands of marker here. Any water based (dye ink) marker will work. I do not personally own any SU markers, but they are dye ink so they should work. (the stamp n write, not the journalers).
  • The waterbrush is the good kind. You do NOT want to get the cheap 3 to a pack ones. DO NOT get that kind. If you do it will spill water all crazy and generally be p00p. The good ones cost 5-7 dollars. It's worth it. You CAN use just a paintbrush and water. Totally up to you.
  • I also have watercolor paper here. You CAN use the Papertrey paper if you don't use a ton of water, that stuff can stand up to it, otherwise go ahead and get you some watercolor paper.
  • There is also a plastic board. ANY nonporus thing will work, inkpad lids, underside of your plastic trimmer, wax coated paper plate, glass plate, your glasses on your face....
  • I use versafine ink to watercolor. It's soooo black and stamps easily and is waterproof. You can use ANY waterproof ink, I believe the SU basic black works (don't have any myself) I know palette works, stazon works.
  • Also you will need a stamp! Mine is Eat Cake Graphics.

On your plastic board scribble a bit of each color you plan to use. Can you see the first two smears, of yellow? The first is Impress marker and the second is Tombow. I have NO idea why the impress stays on the sheet like that while the tombow beads up, but they both work just fine.
Squeeze your waterbrush ONCE to get the water flowing. I personally then check it on the back of my left hand. You want it wet, but not dripping. If it's too wet you can dry it off some with a papertowel then just wiggle it on your hand to get it flowing (don't need to squeeze again usually). If it's too dry try to just flik the brush part a bit on your hand, but if that doesn't work you may need to squeeze again. These are quick light squeezes, you don't need to be squishing it or anything. (Too much water is the main problem people have).
Start to color your image. For her skirt I took the lighter yellow and colored the whole thing then went back with the darker yellow. They blend into each other nicely.
See this smudgeing where the pink from that under thing went into the yellow. That's called "leaching" and it happened because I didn't wait for the yellow to dry before painting the pink. I think it's OK because it's just a bit and watercolor is sorta like that, flowing and all. But if you are bothered by it wait for each color to totally dry before going in with another color.

And that's pretty much it. It's a way quick and simple coloring technique. I hope you enjoy doing it. You can also do the very same thing with a drop of reinker or even with ink from your ink pads that you smash into the lid.


Here's the finished card. It may be a bit crooked now that I look at it online, I'm looking in RL and it seems fine. I'm gonna make sure it's ok before sending it though. :)

11 comments:

Jessim said...

Great instructions!

mum-on-the-run said...

Looks great, thanks for the help :)

Anonymous said...

Excellent tutorial, thanks!

Paula said...

great tutorial. Thanks for taking the time to post this. Love the blog.

Anonymous said...

What a great tutorial. You do a great job watercoloring, and Holly's images are just perfect for the technique!

Brandy said...

Excellent tutorial!!! I bought my new aquapainter thingie today, so have to break it out with come watercolor paper tonight. I'll keep you posted.

Michele Kovack said...

What a great tutorial! I never thought to watercolor with my markers! I am definitely going to try this! Thanks!

Pam Speidel said...

Super tutorial ERin! Terrific card too! :)

shuggy said...

cute card. thanks for the tutorial!

Heidi said...

Great tutorial! Love the card! The black matting looks great with those pastel colors!

mel m. m. mccarthy said...

This is SO cool! You're too good! :0)