Flourishes Focus; Colouring with Twinkling H20's

Hello my Flourishing Friends! It's Laura, and in keeping with this month's focus on colour, I thought I would share what I've discovered using my newest fave...Twinkling H20's. Now, what's ironic is I have only had these little babies for all of 2 months, and while I really think they're fabulous, I haven't had a chance to explore all the possibilities with them. So what I thought was best, was to position this tutorial for the beginner colourer or watercolourer, because I do think there are some fabulous features that make them very appealing for the novice.

Here's what you'll need to get started:
Outline stamps...I chose I Love Roses
Versamark
Detail embossing powder
Twinkling H20's
Aqua painter
Watercolour paper







First, emboss your image. I find that embossing really helps control water bleed, and makes it easier to "stay in the lines".
Plus it looks really pretty!











With my aqua painter, I squeeze out a drop of water into each little pot of your Twinkling H20's.
This softens the paint and makes it easier to pick up the colour.

As I pull colour from the pot, I blot it off on an old Pringles lid. The colour is highly pigmented and intense, so right from the pot it can be too bright. This allows me to squeeze more water out and get the right colour and consistency.
Once I've pulled the colour from the little pot, I won't go back to the pot, I will pick up the colour from the little beads on the Pringles lid.


I begin by adding colour to my dry paper to where I believe it will be the darkest or most shadowy. while the colour is the most intense(dark). Here's what it looks like at that point. Then with a wet brush I begin to pull the colour away from the dark areas. Generally would do one area at a time, so it doesn't dry to fast, but for the picture, I did it all.

Twinkling H20's are quite forgiving. The blend easy, and if you get too much on, you can wet the area, and press a dry paper towel to it, and the paper towel will lift of much of the excess.


To finish, I like to create a wash of colour around the image, and to do that I wet the area around the image a small section at a time.

Then I outline the image with the Twink colour I want, then begin by pulling it out and away from the image in circular motions.




And this is the completed image.
Now I really tried to capture the shimmer, moving my camera and lighting around, but either I got glare from the embossing or a really harsh reflection instead of shimmer. That's really too bad, because it's so pretty in real life.

I will add as a final note, that as you add water and dilute the Twinks, you also water down the shimmer. So there is much more shimmer in the darker
areas.


Here is my finished card. I chose to work with Basic Grey's "Ambrosia" designer papers, and the layout is a sketch from Taylored Expressions TECC42. The three side panels feature the rose stamped in Tangerine Tango on Vanilla. I love repetition as a design element! (you can click on the picture for a larger image)

The photo corner I've had for years, I tied Tangerine Tango grosgrain ribbon along the lower portion. The sentiment is from "Signs of Spring", and it was the perfect size for the image and layout.

I hope you have found something to take away from this quick tutorial. Twinkling H20's are a fun and easy medium to colour with, and I've only shown one of the many things you can do with them. They are available in the Flourishes store, but leave some for me, so I can complete my set!
The rest of the design team has been colouring up a storm, so you'll enjoy stopping in at their blogs to see what shimmering creations they have to share:

Julie Koerber
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Faith Hofrichter
Latisha Yoast
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Jan Marie Caruso

Have a fabulous weekend and thanks for dropping in to see what we've been up to!