Distress Ink Water color fun

My mojo got a little jump start after I watched this video from Kristina Werner.  The video was a review on those popular new Zig Clean Color Real Brush water markers & the new release from Mama Elephant.  No, I don't have the markers, I don't think I need them and honestly I'm good with not having them, especially when I have spent a considerable amount of money on Copics.  But hey if anyone wants to send me some to test I wouldn't say no.  (hahaha!)  After watching the video I was inspired to try my hand at more Distress ink water coloring.  (I was also inspired by Eva's blog, she's been doing a lot with those adorable Mama Elephant stamps and water coloring with Distress Inks.)  A few weeks ago I purchased a stencil made by Hero Arts called large lotus pattern.  An idea popped into my head and I decided to run with it before it disappeared.

I cut down some Canson water color paper into 4 x 5 3/8 so that I could easily adhere them to A2 card bases.  Grabbed some washi tape, the stencil and some Distress Inks.  Since I had the turtles from Sister Stamps on the table I reached for those guys too.

As you can see I adhere the water paper to my board with some washi tape.  I made sure to tape over the edges to get a nice white border all the way around.  I stamped two of the turtles using Versafine Vintage Sepia, then I created masks of each.  In Kristina's video she mentioned Versafine was perfect for use on water color paper because it doesn't run.  A great tip to know!

Next thing to get washi-taped down was the stencil.  The stencil is much bigger than the paper, but it was ok because I had the edge of the paper covered with the washi tape.  No worries that I wouldn't get the effect I was hoping for.  Using the sponge tool I added color going from dark to light with the DI.  Here I used Peeled Paint, Mermaid Lagoon, Evergreen Bough & Tumbled Glass.  Once the colors were put down to my satisfaction I removed the stencil and because of the masks the turtles were saved!  (Yay!)

I used the lightest color, Tumbled Glass, and lightly went over the whole picture with it.  Next I used a few other DI colors to ink up the turtles.  I washed out the colors a little bit by spraying some water on a small paint brush and going over the whole picture with it.  Last I stamped the cute sentiment from Jillibean Soup (Item #jb0198) with Black Versafine ink and wet embossed it with clear embossing powder.  Once I removed the washi tape I was done!

I haven't mounted this one yet, I was thinking of maybe making it into a postcard instead.  They are sturdy enough and flat so they would definitely mail easily.  Something to think about.  I loved this technique, in fact, I loved it so much I ended up coloring 11 more backgrounds using different colored DI!  I have so many colors and with that awesome stencil I figured I could create a bunch more.  They make nice Aloha print backdrops, all I need to add are colored images and a sentiment.
Luckily I have a bunch of colored images handy (left over from the first 30 day coloring challenge) and can't wait to pair them up with a sentiment.  I'll be sharing those over the next few days.  Yay!!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Happy Monday!!