Paper and Fiber Arts: Creative Watercolor Media Card Made with Re-inkers

Creating a Watercolor Card with Re-inkers

The latest AECP class that I completed is the Creative Watercolor Media course in Level 2. There are many different ways to achieve a watercolor effect. Watercolors come in many forms: liquid, pan, pencil, crayon, dots, tubes, and sticks. However, this class is all about using ink with water to create a watercolor look without actually using watercolors. Just as pigment intensity varies with true watercolors, the pigment load exhibited in inks varies, too. The card pictured here is made with water-based dye inks from re-inker bottles. The more diluted the ink, the more transparent the painted image. But first, let us talk about the necessary supplies to work with re-inkers in this manner.

Paper Matters

There are many watercolor papers available. The kind that I used for this card is from Fabriano. It is 300 gsm, 140 lb, and comes in a 9 x 12 pad of 60 sheets. I mainly use it because it is more economical than many of the other papers I've used in the past. It does have the typical watercolor slightly-bumpy paper texture. This makes it challenging to achieve a crisp stamped image. Because these images were to be heat embossed with gold embossing powder, I wasn't very concerned about the texture of the paper. Using a stamping platform and double stamping with Versamark helps to ensure a good enough base for the powder to stick. I also made a background with re-inkers on the same paper as the stamped and die-cut images.

Creating a Background

The background was made by dropping dots of Burnt Red, Marigold, and Citrus Burst dye ink re-inkers onto wet watercolor paper, and then using a straw to blow air across the page. I also used a pipette to see if the same effect would be achieved. The pipette didn't work well because there was not enough air to move the water and ink. It came in handy to add more water, though. As it turned out, it is good that the background was never going to be the primary focus because the results were different from what I had hoped. The ink dots were too saturated and created blobs. Next time, I will mix the re-inker dots with water before applying the ink to the paper.

After the background dried, I splattered some opaque white watercolor (Dr. Ph Martin's) and some gold metallic watercolor (Altenew's) over the paper.

Painting the Stamped Images

Because of all of the little wells, using a mixed media mat made it easier to mix the ink with water. This also allowed for lots of surface area to dilute the ink even further. The picture above shows the four blue inks: Sea Breeze, Turquoise, Tide Blue, and Starlight, along with the green Firefly ink prior to mixing with water. I used a wet-on-wet technique which moves the ink and water on the images really easily. This is something that takes practice. Some of the flowers and leaves look better than others! The painterly effect of ink with water is always fun to behold. I like the contrast of the warm-colored background with the cool-colored flowers and leaves. To give depth to the card the blossoms are popped up with foam tape. The sentiment strip was laying on my desk leftover from another project. It fit perfectly.