Thanksgiving Watercolor Card

I was intrigued by the Watercolor card posted by Julie Ann Davidse on the My Digital Studio (MDS) site. She credited the technique to Patty Bennett’s watercolor card, also on the MDS site. I had to figure out that technique!

I ultimately found the instructions on Cindy Schuster’s Watercoloring Technique video and her MDS Watercolor Technique Tutorial blog post. I’m not 100% sure who came up with the instructions originally, but those are the examples and sites that inspired my Thanksgiving Watercolor Card:

I wanted to try something other than flowers, and a splashy fall tree seemed like a perfect option. As the saying goes around here, you can tell Fall is proof that God’s a Hokie.

It looks a bit more like an impressionist’s painting to me because of the colors are deep. I used the same basic technique that was described in the tutorials:

• I changed the background to Very Vanilla.
• I stamped the Dutch Elm from the Lovely as a Tree set in Early Espresso and resized it to fit the card.
• I stamped the Splatter from the Extreme Elements set in Cherry Cobbler and in Pumpkin Pie.
• I rotated and resized the Splatter stamps, and I changed the layering until I had the leaves covered and a color arrangement I liked.
• I adjusted the opacity on some of the Splatter stamps, rather randomly, to add some lighter colors and give the image some depth.
• I stamped the Splatter from the Extreme Elements set in Soft Suede and Early Espresso, resized to a much smaller size, to fill in the trunk of the tree.
• I restamped and resized the Dutch Elm from the Lovely as a Tree set in Early Espresso, and aligned the images (I found this easier than moving the images up and down to get what I wanted).
• I stamped the sentiment Gratitude Transforms from the Bright Blessings set in Cherry Cobbler, resized it to fit the width, and added the drop shadow.

So happy to learn this technique. I’m now reconsidering my Wish List to see is there are other stamps that would be great for watercoloring. Thanks to Julie, Patty, and Cindy for posting their examples and explanations.