Casing Barb's Just Keep...Swimming!

Hi There!

My good friend, Barb over at The Buzz recently shared a really neat looking watercolor card here. She has been taking an online class on watercoloring and I've just been amazed by her creations. (You can see them here) You see, I am completely watercolor challenged. As I told her, it's not a bid for sympathy or anything. I just don't have the right touch. I remember becoming so frustrated years ago when I was a consultant for Close To My Heart and I would try watercoloring. Nope, watercolor and I just don't get along. 

When I came across the post I linked above, I was intrigued. Barb insisted that you can't mess this technique up. In her post she explains how to do the technique and I watched the video she linked as well. Seemed like it could be something I could do. I had most of the supplies on hand. Well, except the two ink colors I wanted to use, that is. What a perfect excuse to add to my stash of distress inks! *Ü* Armed with some coupons, I picked up Peacock Feathers and Spiced Marmalade yesterday. And wouldn't you know, Michaels put ink pads on sale starting today?! May have to add a couple of more colors to my stash this week.

I wandered into my crafty space this afternoon to give it a try. My first attempt...did not like! I couldn't get a good coverage of ink onto my watercolor paper. There were large patches of white showing through. I had no idea really how much ink to smear onto my craft sheet and how much water to spritz onto it. I dried my paper and reinked it, but still large spots of no ink coverage. I got a little worried that this easy sounding technique wasn't going to be so easy for me. I tried again on a new piece of paper, still a lot of white space. Hmph!! Then I got the idea to try on the flip side of the watercolor paper, the side that was a little more smooth. Ahhhhh....that looked much better!

And, after a bunch of fiddling and futzing...here's the final result...

I told you in my title that I cased Barb's work, but I did try to add my own little twist. I added some detail on the fish with a colored pencil and a colorless blender. I had some googly eyes in different sizes and I found some neat looking sequins in my stash. They are from Hobby Lobby, Make It Christmas. I need tips on how best to add sequins. These were a bit of a pain to get to stick. My extra touch is the spraying of the shimmer onto the background, all over the watercolored piece. I took the second picture in the sunlight to help capture the sparkle. You might need to enlarge to see it better. 

That's all for today. Felt good to get my fingers inky (and I do mean inky, this may be a somewhat easy technique, but it is also a little messy, hee, hee).

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day.

Jeanne