Watercolor crayons

I want to look closer at more watercolor crayon examples. I told you on the pussy willow that I basically used one color - brown. Here are more examples made with Serendipity stamps that show how I used different colors as I colored on the rubber to achieve a different look. You can look at these images and tell there is no ink lines. Everything was done in watercolor. Now, I might have to come back and pull some of the pigment from the image to paint in the solid parts....or I might have to bring more paint in to fill in the solid parts. The only portions that will have pigment on them are the lines of the stamped image, so yes, usually you will have to supplement and bring in more paint. When you use wc paper (as opposed to card stock), you do have the luxury of moving the pigment around while it is still wet and pulling it over into the solid areas. The Thanksgiving scene was complicated coloring as there are so many small objects that are different colors. You can tell that I came back in and added to the apples and the grapes...painted the kernels of corn, etc.

The spade below was fairly simple as there are only three colors....brown, green for the ribbon and gray for the spade.

This technique is great for the winter accessories, as you get a soft muted look....this was easy as it was only two colors, blue and a stripe of purple.

I think looking at these examples will help you learn the type of stamps this technique will work with....I have heard people say, Oh you need big, bold images.....I don't agree. I think you will find that these have quite a bit of detail on them. It is actually much easier to do this method than to paint the images with paint. The bricks, for instance, were basically a solid image. If you inked them, they are going to be that color, flat....no variation in color. Now, we all know that old bricks do have variation in color. So, by using different shades when coloring them and the fact that some are going to be more muted than others, gives me bricks that look more realistic than they would be if I stamped them with ink. That should give you something to think about.

Wonder why I often use four examples? That is how many Picasa allows me to "Blog this" with and it is so easy to do it directly from Picasa! Now, go look at your stamps in a different way....more examples to come later.