Pretty in Pink for the Flower Challenge!

Hi there! I am excited to be a guest for The Flower Challenge this month! I was so honored when my friend Aileen (@huh_what_pardon on Instagram) asked if I would be a guest for this challenge. This month’s challenge theme is Use a Shape. I love flowers, we all know that, and so I was excited to have an excuse to play with one of the stamp sets I’ve illustrated for Pinkfresh Studio: Best of Everything. I did some loose watercoloring for today’s challenge project, so let’s get started with the details.

I began by heat embossing my intricate floral image from Best of Everything onto some Arches Hot Press watercolor paper using white pearl embossing powder. I then taped it down to my watercolor board using washi tape and watercolored it using my “tie dye” method of watercoloring with Holbein watercolors. Essentially, I begin by getting my entire watercolor panel wet with clean water, then dropping in very diluted (less pigment, more water) color all over the background, not caring whether the color lands on leaves (which should be green) or flowers, basically just allowing the colors to bleed into each other and create an interesting base layer.

After my tie-dye layer had dried, I went back with the same watercolors that I used for the base layer, this time more concentrated (more pigment, less water) to add depth and shadows to the individual flowers. The base layer helps to add a bit of variation on the individual flower petals and leaves by allowing multiple colors to shine through on the lighter highlighted areas. Once it had dried completely, I trimmed it down and mounted the watercolored panel on a vivid pink card base.

For the “Add A Shape” component of the challenge, I die cut a Blanket Stitched Oval die from Pinkfresh Studio, cut from some heavyweight vellum. I also die cut a Happy Birthday greeting from an older, retired die set (whoops!). I die cut the sentiment twice from the same vivid pink cardstock, then layered them together to create a sturdier, more dimensional die cut. I adhered the sentiment die cuts to the vellum oval, then popped them up with clear dimensional adhesive. Vellum can be tricky to work with, but small pieces of the clear dimensional tape are fairly well hidden behind the sentiment die cut! A few sparkling gems from Pinkfresh Studio helped to finish the project off and add some sparkle.

Well, that’s all for my project today! I hope you’ll check out The Flower Challenge blog to see how you can enter your own project for this month’s challenge: Add A Shape. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!