Flowers from ink

I was sorting through my box of backgrounds — more to remind myself what I had than to get rid of anything — and I came across this A6 piece of watercolour paper covered in smooshed ink and, unfortunately, some failed stamping. I put it to one side, thinking that it would probably end up in the bin.

The following morning I looked at it again and I had an idea.

I picked a stamp set with some big, not too fussy flowers and stamped a group of them on the panel, masking as needed, and then drew in some stems.

I added shading to the flowers with Copic marker, which works well over Distress ink, although the watercolour paper soaks up the ink quickly and makes it tricky to blend.

The background was blocked out with white gesso. The gesso lifts some of the Distress colour so, as long as you don’t put a thick layer on, it creates an interesting mottled background.

Because of the randomness of the ink background I needed to create more definition in the flowers. This was my first test of the Stabilo All pencil — it’s a good soft black pencil that blends out well using a paper stump, even on watercolour paper, but add a wet brush to it and you’ve got a lovely rich black outline.

I found some suitable sparklies in my stash and added them to the centres of the flowers to finish it off.

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Create A Smile – in bloom
• Inks:
  Hero Arts – intense black
• Colour:
  white gesso
  Stabilo All pencil – black
• Copic markers:
  large flower – V15, V17, V09
  medium flowers – Y15, YR27, E18
  small flowers – R32, RV14, RV69
• Embellishments:
  resin jewels
• miscellaneous:
  ink smooshed background from stash