Watercolour Background and Stamping with Mists

Hello, Monica here to show you a basic watercolor tutorial! I am just getting comfortable with watercolors and, let me tell you, they are so fun to play with! I think the key is to have the right supplies.

Here is what I used:

watercolors set (mine was a fairly cheap one from Michaels)
watercolor paper (found at any craft store, in the art section)
spray mist in a couple of colors
a thicker bristle paintbrush
water pens/brushes (optional)
stamps


To start, I wanted to give some color to the background, with the edges darker and progressively getting lighter. So I started with just a teeny bit of water to get the darkest shade on the edge first. Then, you can either add more water to the paint palette or, if you are using a water brush, just squeeze some water out and swoop it across the paint line to bring some color down.


Keep doing this across your background to achieve the look you want. What I did was take another dark shade of paint and ran it across my page


Then, add some water or squeeze a little out of your brush and sweep the brush across the paper to spread out the color.

This is where watercolor paper comes in handy! You can saturate the paper to get varying shades of the color you want without the paper falling apart. It does warp the paper a bit, but I just flatten it with books or magnets as it dries.

stamping with mists
One day I was playing around and decided to try stamping with spray mists. It definitely doesn't turn out a perfectly stamped image, but I think the look is really fun to match the watercolor look I was going for on this layout.

For this, all you need is a couple of shades of any spray mist, a paint brush, and stamp. Unscrew the lid to the mist, stick your paint brush in the ink, and then brush it back and forth on the inside to get most of the excess off. Then, simply "paint" your stamp and stamp it on your paper!


I found that you can vary the shade of color just by how much of the excess mist you get off the brush. Also, try stamping on the paper once and then stamping again without adding more mist.

misted look with watercolors
One last thing I wanted to share that I am addicted to doing on most layouts now! It is a misted look with watercolors instead of spray ink. For this, you need a medium-sized bristle paintbrush and you will want to add a lot of water into the paint palette. Get a lot of paint onto your bush, and then hold the brush above your finger and just barely "tickle" the brush. You will see little speckles of paint fall on your paper. If you want bigger drops, you can flick the paintbrush harder, or also take a lot of watered-down paint and just let it drip from your brush.


You can see how this technique turned out here with the yellow-orange speckles on my background.

And here is the final layout!