the art of shading – watercolor pencils – part three plus a bonus night scene background idea

Watercolor Pencils are a fabulous way to shade and add color to your line art stamp sets.

The Perched in a Tree Bundle was used for this technique in the Art of Shading series and used with a paint brush or our Water Painters or Blender Pens it is an easy way to shade your stamps and look like a watercolor artist!

There is also a bonus segment for the background night scene behind the Aspen Dies on the card!

Measurements:
Base: Night of Navy 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″
scored at 4 1/4″
Layers: 4 pieces of Basic White 4″ x 5 1/4″
One for the background technique
One for the bird and branch stamps
One for the Aspen tree die
One for the inside layer
Stamp the bird and branch from the Perched in a Tree stamp set onto one of the Basic White layers, and with the desired colors of watercolor pencils start to color light in some areas and darker where there would be shadow or need for shading. There is no need to color the entire surface if you plan to use liquid from a brush or pen as the liquid will push the colors and act as the blending tool.

Continue to color the bird from lightest colors to the darker colors last, clean the blender pen or Water Painter in between colors.

If there are shading lines included on the stamp use those as an easy benchmark of where to shade color darker as you see on the branch.

BONUS Night scene background:

Using two colors of blue (I used Night of Navy and Pacific Point inks) and Blending brushes, burnish color over an entire section of 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Basic White CS layer. Blend the two different colors together in the middle.

Using a Water Painter flick droplets of water onto the inked background.
Do the same with the Wink of Stella pen, this will create depth and dimension on the background as well as star like splatters on the paper.
Using White craft ink and the smaller circle from the Watercolor Shapes stamp set, stamp a moon image onto the upper right hand side of the background paper.
Adhere to the base Night of Navy cardstock.

Pop up the Aspen die onto Stampin’ Dimensionals and adhere to the night scene background paper.

Adhere the bird and branch images to the front and stamp the sentiment in Night of Navy ink onto the last 4″ x 5 1/4″ Basic White layer and adhere to the inside of the card.