How To Wow With Black Watercolor

Watercoloring can be intimidating and using black watercolor paper can be even scarier. Read on to learn how to make this stunning card.

Painting on black watercolor cardstock takes this card to a whole different level.

The technique is simple. Brush the cardstock with anti-static powder. Heat emboss the flowers and leaves by stamping them onto the cardstock using watermark ink. Sprinkle gold embossing powder over the top and give the card a tap to remove any loose powder. And then heating the powder until it’s melted and smooth.

To color the flowers and leaves we’ll use metallic ink sprays. Beginning with several different colors of sprays, we’ll spray a bit of each of the different colors onto our media mat. Then one at a time we’ll pick up the color with our paintbrush and swish it onto the flowers and leaves beginning at the centers of the leaves or petals and ending at their ends.

We want to be sure to clean our brush between colors and work in layers. We make sure to let each layer dry before adding another.

Next, we use the dies that coordinate with the stamps to cut out each of the images.

Watercolor Inking Techniques on Black Background

We’ll use another piece of watercolor cardstock to create the background. We begin by adding water to the cardstock with our paintbrush. Then we spritz the color we’ve chosen for our background and watch the magic happen.

The spray needs to be dry before we trim the card panel down to 3 3/4″ x 5″. We can do this with either a trimmer or a die.

Next, we’ll add the card panel to the base by using a foam sheet to pop it up a bit.

Assembling The Black Watercolor Card

Now we’ll arrange the pieces on top of the card panel and base. We do this now so that we can determine where we want to put the sentiment and to know how much space we have to put it in.

Once we’re happy with the arrangement we carefully press a piece of Press-n-Seal into each piece. Now we can determine where we want to put the sentiment and will know how much space we have to put it in.

Next, we’ll use a scrap of black cardstock to heat emboss the sentiment on and then fussy cut it out.

Now we lift up the Press-n-Seal with all of the flowers and leaves and flip it over so that it is laying on the side that is not sticky. We’ll begin to apply liquid glue to the leaves only. Being careful to get glue in between petals as well as on all the spots where the leaves will attach directly to the card panel.

Next, we’ll turn the flowers and petals over, and hover them over our card panel until we have them where we want them and then press them lightly with our fingers. Once that is done we’ll begin to lift the Press-n-Seal off. We have to use our fingers to hold the flowers in place on the card panel as we lift the sticky paper off of them.

To give the flowers some dimension we’ll carefully bend the edges of the petals as they would look in real life. And then we can attach them using liquid as well.

The last thing to do is to pop up the sentiment using foam tape or scraps of foam sheets.

The inspiration for this card is Altenew’s Creative Watercolor Media Class.

Supplies

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• Cardstock: Card base – Neenah Classic Crest 110lb Solar White; Images & Card panel – Legion Stonehenge Aqua Black Watercolor; Sentiment – Gina K Designs Black Onyx
• Stamp: Altenew Adore You; Altenew Painted Poppies
• Die: Altenew Adore You; Gina K Designs Master Layouts 1
• Metallic Ink Spray: Altenew – Coral Berry, Midnight Violet, Forest Glades, Warm Sunshine, Ocean Waves
• Watermark Ink: Versamark
• Anti-static tool: The Rabbit Hole
• Adhesives: Bearly Art Glue; Gina K Adhesive Dot Runner

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