Hello there, and welcome to this point on the Altenew Paint-A-Flower: Hydrangea blog hop! You should be arriving here from the talented Jaycee’s blog, but if not, click back to the start at the Altenew Card Blog so you don’t miss anything beautiful!
I have two cards for today’s post, and yes, they are essentially the same, so the reason for the two is to follow up on something I’ve been meaning to do since Altenew released two different kinds of watercolor paper recently, and what better time to do so than with this gorgeous Paint-A-Flower stamp set!
You can see some of the initial differences between the two papers in the photo above. On the left is the 100% Cotton, cold-pressed, 140 watercolor paper pad. It has more texture – it’s visible without even adding paint or color to it. It comes in a large 9″x12″ pad and is a pale cream color as most watercolor paper is.
As you can see from the painted sample above, the texture is evident even in the way the paint moves and dries, seen specifically in the area just above the Altenew name on the watermark band along the bottom. I happen to love that so this will be an easy reach for me when I want to create a particularly artistic project. Perhaps because of the 100% Cotton aspect, this paper absorbs the water quickly and completely and probably takes more water to achieve a fluid color blend than does the smooth watercolor paper featured below.
The sample on the right in the first photo above and immediately above is made with this Watercolor Paper Set and is also a very high quality of watercolor paper but it has some immediate obvious differences. First off, you’ll notice by comparison that it is much smoother than the paper above and is also whiter and brighter in color. It is 50% Cotton, 140 lb and comes in a convenient A2 sized package of 24 loose pieces. I can’t explain why or how but it also seems to grab and hold the paint slightly differently, although the finished dried example is just as beautiful. In particular, note some of the green paint splatters on the photo above – do you see that ring of darker color on the edges of the splatters? It’s the quality of the paper that does that, and it’s not good or bad, it just is what it is! I love the way the paint colors blended on the hydrangea petals and have no complaints there.
The stamp set I’m using today is such a lovely one! It is the April monthly Paint-A-Flower subscription stamp set and is automatically available to all subscription holders. Beyond that, it is available while supplies last, and is then discontinued.
For both cards, I stamped with embossing ink and heat set with white embossing powder for a more delicate finished look. I used the Artist Watercolor 36 Pan Set to paint both of these cards and the painting technique I used was to paint the entire bloom first with clean water, then drop in shades of purple, blue and green pigment, letting them blend haphazardly the way real hydrangeas do. The raised edges provided by heat embossing helps to coral the color in some places. After letting the first layer of color dry, I went back a second and third time, adding deeper shades here and there for some visual difference. The leaves are mixes of greens, blues and gold/tan shades and the backgrounds are an experiment to see how well the paper allowed the color to blend and spread. I created the background colors by mixing and using the leftover puddles of color from the leaves and blooms.
For my “white & bright” watercolor paper card, I finished it off by trimming the sides narrower and machine stitching (haven’t done that in ever so long!) overtop a background of three coordinating patterned papers.
I used one of the sentiments in this month’s stamp set and heat embossed with Platinum Embossing powder.
For my 100% Cotton watercolor paper card, I also used some patterned paper to compliment, but this time I trimmed the painted panel short by about 1″ and machine stitched it layered overtop the gingham papers.
I stamped the sentiment for this card onto the patterned paper accent strip along the bottom and once again, heat set with Platinum Embossing powder.
Here’s one more photo of that gorgeous texture! It really gets me!!
As usual with an Altenew blog hop, there are prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog for a chance to win. They will also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on THIS POST on 04/30/2020.
Your next stop on the hop is Kelly’s blog. Should you encounter a broken link anywhere along the hop, you can refer to the complete hop list below.
Norine Borys – You are here.
Thank you so much for visiting today and enjoy the rest of the hop!
