Coloring with Inks and Watercolor Crayons
Coloring with inks and watercolor crayons is an essential part of a creative self-care practice. By learning to color with these mediums, they will teach you many things. This includes how these mediums blend, how they react with certain papers and surfaces, and how you can incorporate them as layers within your mixed media projects.
Caran d’Ache Watercolor Crayons
A new product in my art practice is the Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Watercolor crayons. I had originally purchased these to use in my acrylic painting classes. They are a very useful when creating basic sketches on canvas.
But watercolor crayons have many more uses than just sketching out images. These highly pigmented water soluble wax crayons blend in a way that is different than traditional watercolors. They are more flexible and more forgiving than traditional watercolors. They also work well with acrylics and other medium because they are waxed based. I love that you can write with watercolor crayons and then add water for interesting blends. I believe they are a must-have material for a mixed media practice.
Easter Card
In this week’s project we will be covering how to color with inks and watercolor crayons. How to blend the crayons with water and color in the beautiful designs from the Wild Whisper Designs Fanciful Florals paper collection. I will also share how to use these with Distress inks to make a beautiful Easter card.
Add Distress Inks to Paper
Start by adding Distress Inks to paper using a foam and blending tool. By blending in light layers this will create a warm and soft color to the card background. Start blending with Squeezed Lemonade distress ink in a very light manner across the open spaces in the card. Add in more layers closer to the card edges, creating a darker blend. The idea is to blend darker on the edges to have a light blend close to the floral images.
Add in Broken China distressed ink in areas and blend into the yellow areas of the card. This will cause you to create beautiful green tones along with the pure blue and yellow colors.
Adding in Caran d’Ache Watercolor Crayon to Images
Apply Caran d’Ache watercolor crayon to the floral images. Do not color in the entire image with watercolor crayon. Add water with a watercolor brush and blend the color out to the edges of the image. If you like a more intense color, add watercolor crayon directly to the wet surface and continue to blend out with a watercolor brush. Watercolor crayons have the advantage of being able to be used in a wet-on-wet technique, where crayon can be applied to a wet surface directly.
Adding in Iridescent Watercolor Paint
Using a paintbrush, gently tap the brush, or pull back the bristles with your finger to add speckles of iridescent watercolor paint to the paper. Set aside to dry completely.
Stamping Your Sentiment
Using the Wild Whisper Designs Capital Letters Stamps, stamp the word “Happy” with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink. Cut the words out with scissors or a Brother ScanNCut electric die cutting machine.
Writing Your Sentiment
You can either use a small stamp or letter stickers for the word “Easter.” If you would like to add a personal touch to this card, use your own writing. Start by handwriting the word Easter with a gel pen. Then go back over the word adding thicker areas to the downstrokes of each letter. If the gel pen that you are using has a lighter color, added shadows to the letters with a Sakura Micron Pen.
Use foam dots to pop up your sentiment on the card to give it separation from the background. Try overlapping some of the floral images with the sentiment as it makes for a more cohesive card. Add your card front to a white card, leaving a border around the image.
What Do You Think?
Have you tried coloring with inks and watercolor crayons in your projects? I would love to hear if you have any questions or thoughts on this project. Please comment below or contact me directly. I would love to see your work! Please use hashtag #hopalongstudio if you are posting on Instagram, I would love to like and share your work! I hope that you take time for self-care this week and give this project a try. Have a great Easter weekend!
Project Supply List
- Wild Whisper Designs Fanciful Florals Paper
- Wild Whisper Designs Capital Letter Stamps
- Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Watercolor Crayons
- Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Squeezed Lemonade, Broken China and Mermaid Lagoon
- Ranger Mini Blending Tool and Foams
- Pens: Sakura Micron Pen Blue, Pentel Arts Crazy Pop Gel Pen, Zebra Green Pen
- Adhesives: Recollections Foam Adhesive Circles, Scotch Advanced Tape Glider
- Staples 90lb White Cardstock
- Brushes: da Vinci Cosmotop Spin Watercolor Brushes Sizes 000, 0, 2, 4
- Other Materials: Water Container, Paper Towel
If you are interested in any of the Wild Whisper Designs products, please visit www.wildwhisperdesigns.com and use code DTNADINE at checkout to receive 10% off your next order.
