Sunshine Watercolour Dwellings

Hello all!  It's time for the new challenge at A Vintage Journey.  The theme chosen by our fabulous host, Amanda, is Watercolour, so I wasn't going to miss that one!

As most of you know, I've been experimenting and dabbling in watercolour this year, but for this I've been using them in a more mixed media kind of way, and here's what I came up with.

If you've been visiting recently, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I only ever deal in blues and browns and soft neutrals.

Not so - there have been occasional departures from the neutrals, blues and greens in the past (try this, or this, or this, for instance!), and I've done it again for this project.

I'm always inspired by vivid colours - Andrea Ockey Parr, Marjie Kemper, and our own Tracy Evans all use brights in ways that really excite me, with a freshness and a life and a positive energy.  And when I have dabbled in the past, it's often been to this contrasting colour world of pinks/reds/oranges.


Believe it or not, this is made with just two watercolour paints... Daniel Smith's Quinacridone Lilac and Aussie Red Gold.  Then of course there's some gesso and white acrylic paint involved too.

But one of my chief delights with the watercolours, as with inks, is watching how they blend and play with one another, and the unexpected tones and shades which appear as a result of combining pigment with another pigment with water.






For these tiny houses, I started by adding gel medium through the Tim Holtz stars stencil onto a 12x9 inch sheet of watercolour paper.

Once the gel was fully dry, I started to add washes of colour, enjoying all those moments where the water and the pigment dance together.





It makes me so happy... the splatters and edges and washes and brilliant clashes of colour which make the senses tingle.

Of course when it dries, watercolour always becomes much paler, so I went in with a second application (a glaze, in official watercolour terms, though a glaze is very different in mixed media/acrylic world).















I'd fallen in love with the full on vivid colour tones, so that's what I wanted to build with the extra layers.







Once I liked the effect, I ran the sheet through the BigShot with Tim's Tiny Houses die a couple of times to get my walls.








I stamped the tiny text from the Stuff 2 Say set in Snowflake Fresco paint.  I generally just "paint" a bit of the paint onto my craft mat and press the stamp into that to get my impression.

I used a couple of differently sized lids to add gesso circles... one was from a mini jam jar which appeared on my craft desk while I was away (!?), and one was a Distress Paint lid.  And of course there's some white spatter too.






For the roofs, I cut some corrugated cardboard with the die and applied a couple of coats of gesso and one of watercolour ground.  I love this stuff - it turns any surface into a watercolour-suitable surface, and it has a lovely grainy quality which gives great textural detail.












I added spatters and splotches of my same two watercolour paints - some pure and some mixed for a nice range of colour tones.

And I sponged up some of the spare paint washes to blend onto the edges of the roofs.












I used Tim's large butterfly punch to punch out a few butterflies from some of the leftover starry sheet.

It's symmetrical enough that you can glue two butterflies back to back.











That means you get a) colour on both sides and b) a much sturdier butterfly.

(I know that butterflies aren't meant to be sturdy, but it does help when they're perched on a rooftop.)












Now's the time when going for the really vivid watercolour tones pays off - the white is all the more dramatic against the brights.















Some wild threads add extra movement, tucked behind my two selected Idea-ology Quote Chips.














I do feel so lucky to be able to spend my life creating art - whether in my working life with words, or here on the blog with pictures (and some words!).

As a final finishing touch, I added some tiny wooden Scrapiniec stars (you also saw them in action along with some Neutral Blues very recently).














They've had a touch of the watercolour ground for texture.  I love how they echo the gel resist stars in the background.
















And if you just want the full-on colour effect without any interruptions you can take a trip round to the back of the houses!















Thanks so much for stopping by today.   I hope you've enjoyed this trip to the other side of the colour wheel... I know I have!











If these sunshine watercolour dwellings haven't already fired your imagination to play with Watercolour this month, you'll find lots more inspiration over at A Vintage Journey where my fabulous team-mates have once again provided an incredible range of glorious projects for your delectation.











There's a prize voucher on offer from the brilliant Craft Obsessions online store for one random winner, and you might be picked as one of our Pinworthies by the Creative Guides.  We hope we'll have the pleasure of your company on the road some time this month.  Happy crafting all!

The nature of watercolour... Its unpredictability, its sensuousness, the textures it seems to make of its own accord, and its legendary luminosity are some of the qualities often lauded.
Rachel Rubin Wolf






I'd like to share this at Stamps and Stencils where they are hosting a Technique School for this month's challenge.  You need to share at least one process photo - mine are about using using watercolour paints and watercolour ground in mixed media work
At That's Crafty Challenges they are looking for Anything But Cards - I'm always happiest when it's not a card!
And I'd like to play along with the August Watercolour Challenge over at Happy Little Stampers