Monday, July 6, 2009

How To Watercolor a Digi Stamp Tutorial

With opening McMahon Five Design Digi Store (and more!) recently, I have found that many crafters have not tried all their favorite and familiar coloring techniques with digi's. And sometimes, when they do...it doesn't work out so well.

I for one, LOVE to watercolor and have to be able to do so with Digi's. I have figured out a few tips and tricks about watercoloring digi's and would love to share them with you!


First, I selected my Wildflower Digi, resized it several times and printed them out on one sheet of watercolor paper. I want to use the Paper Tole Technique with this image when I am done coloring it.

After printing the images on the watercolor paper, I use my Heat Gun Tool to heat set the images to prevent the printer ink from smearing. I heated each image for approximately 10 seconds each. Of course, move your gun around so you do not start a fire! ;)


I am coloring the Wildflower with my Stampin' Up! Markers. I'm dating myself as you can see they are the old style markers. LOL! I choose Barely Banana, Rose Red, Certainly Celery, and Garden Green. Also, I will use my Aqua Painter to do the actual watercoloring with.



I scrub on some Rose Red color.


I use my Aqua Painters to move the ink around. See...no black ink smeared! It works!



I finish up the flower part of the image.



Then a little Certainly Celery and Garden Green for the leaves.



With the images colored, I then need to cut them out for my Paper Tole Technique I will use on the card.


One more tip to share before I let you go...

After I cut out an image whether it's a digi or regular stamped image, I always color the cut edges with my Basic Black Marker. Can you see how it just completes the image? Gets rid of all the unfinished white edges. Definitely more professional finish to the flower. (The 2 on the right side have been edged, the 3 on the left side have not)

Thanks for visiting! I hope I helped you with your Digi Watercolor troubles! If you have any other questions about watercoloring or digi's, please post them below and I will get them answered for you!

Have a wonderful day and Happy Watercoloring! :)


12 comments:

Priscilla said...

AWESOME TUTORIAL..

designsfromwithinbycharlotte said...

Sue, what a great tutorial! I love to see watercolored pictures but would need a little more practice to get as good as your!!! Thanks so much for sharing this with us.
Hugs,
Charlotte

Anonymous said...

Great post Sue! And it looks like Card of the Week agrees too! Just found your tutorial there.

Abby:)

Sue McMahon said...

WOO HOO! Thanks for letting me know, Abby! I'm so excited!

Kathy Jones said...

This is a fabulous post and I really enjoy learning how people do different techniques --- thanks so much!!

Linda Coughlin, the funkie junkie said...

Great tutorial, Sue. Thanks for sharing your expertise. I have never been able to use the SU markers for watercoloring and always end up using the reinkers with an aqua painter. Your instructions make it sound very do-able. Congrats on making Card of the Week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

WOW! Great info! Helpful techniques! What a nice store too!

Unknown said...

awesome tutorial, I love watercoloring ;)

Susie Sugar said...

Great tutorial thank you .
Hugs Susie xx

Kristine said...

OH MY GOODNESS... this is exactly what I need to see! :) I tried printing on my ultrasmooth white c.s. and even heat dried theink and it still smeared with my aqua pen. Maybe I need to try wc paper! *smacking forehead!* OKAY... I'm gonna give this another try, LOL. One more question... what KIND of watercolor paper do you use??

Thanks! :)

Betty J Schaub said...

Wonderful tut Sue. Can you tell me what kind of watercolor paper you used? I am new to watercoloring digis and I want to make sure I am off to a good start.
Thanks!

Terry@ a quilting blog said...

Great tutorial....thanks for sharing!!

~Terry