Hello friends and welcome to the Watercolor Lovers Blog Hop with Altenew! I’ve been excited to share these new products with you for so long and today is finally the day! You should be arriving here from Rosie Neustaedter’s blog, but if you’ve arrived here by chance and would like to take in the entire hop, you can click back to the Altenew Card Blog where it all begins!
This post contains affiliate links that are listed below. Your clicking through to purchase products linked helps to support this blog at no additional cost to you and allows me to continue to provide you with creative inspiration and instructive help.
The first of the exciting new products being released today is the Watercolor Coloring Book. I’ve owned a few watercolor coloring books in my day and I consider myself to be something of a picky connoisseur where they are concerned, so keep reading for the reasons why I love this one the best!
As well as the new watercoloring book, Altenew is releasing two new sets of paint brushes! One is a set of 4 round brushes, sizes 1, 2, 3, 4 and a size 18 flat brush. There is also a set of 4 detail brushes, sizes 0, 1, 2, and 3. These elegant and beautiful brushes feature synthetic squirrel/sable hair and black birch wood handles accented by a black metal ferrule. They come in a specially designed black cloth container to encase the brushes safely and elegantly in your craft room.
Now back to the coloring book. It contains 24 pages of 12 different designs, one printed in black for a stamped look, and one printed in gray for a no-line watercoloring look. The paper is 100% cotton, cold press watercolor paper, 300 gsm and at 5″x7″ size is perfect for framed home decor projects, large format cards, or can be trimmed down for A2 size cards as I’ve done today. Not to mention, the compact pocket size is perfect for tucking in your purse for on-the-go painting!
The first card is a study in blues and purples with a mix of gray-greens for the leaves. I used the 36 Pan Watercolor Paint set and mixed colors in the palette lid to get interesting variations of color.
To keep the colors pale, especially for the background, I used plenty of water, and the paper in this book can handle it beautifully! I didn’t tape down the panels as I painted and even so there was hardly any warping when they dried.
On each of my cards today, I’ve kept it very simple once the coloring and painting was finished. Because the floral designs fill the card panel, there was no need for anything more besides. I kept the sentiments very understated – stamping greetings from the Fragile Foliage stamp set with Obsidian Pigment ink and heat setting with clear embossing powder.
I also added the pen inked lines on the cards in a variety of styles, using a fine liner pen and straight edge ruler.
On this card I colored first with the Woodless Watercolor Pencils and painted with a wet brush. What I especially love about using the pencils to “paint” is the ability they give me to take the coloring book away from my studio, and to color on the go. If I want to paint with water at the same time I can, or I can wait and do that when I’m back at my desk.
Additionally, I love that the pencils slow down the process, in that I can add color in specific areas, add a different color beside it and let the water do the blending. It helps me achieve a more predictable outcome. The best example of that on this card, is the yellow/rose flower on the top right. You can see the color mixes in the leaves too.
I would caution against TOO much water and too much “scrubbing” with the paint brush or the result will be a flat color with no nuance of shades.
My last card is a no-line painted card. The shade of ink used to print the image is perfect for disappearing with almost any color of paint.
If you notice the difference in texture between the top and bottom flowers, I can explain it this way. On the bottom flower I painted with a wet on dry technique, bringing a paint loaded brush to the paper, and touching down in the shaded corners and using a clean brush to draw the color out.
On the top flower, I used a wet on wet technique, painting each individual petal with clean water first, then adding paint to the shaded crevices and using a clean wet brush to coax the pigment out.
The wet on wet produces a smoother finish when dry, but the wet on dry has it’s own watercolor painting charm.
As I like to do, each card got a “muddy” paint shade for the background, and once that dried, some paint speckles to coordinate. The last step was to add the permanent marker lines.
The next step on the hop is Teri Koszler’s blog. Should you get lost along the way, there is a complete blog hop list at the end of this post that you can refer back to.
Special Offer
Receive a FREE brand new Poppy Arrangement Stamp Set (worth $23.99) with every order of the new Florals Coloring Book and Watercolor Bundle from 2/11/2021 at 12:01 AM EST until 2/14/2021 at 11:59 PM EST. Shop HERE —> https://altenew.com/products/florals-coloring-book-and-watercolor-bundle Free gift will be added to cart automatically.
Giveaway Prizes
$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 gift certificate to 10 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 02/16/2021 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 12 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 02/19/2021.
Blog Hoppers
Norine Borys
Thank you for stopping today, and enjoy the rest of the hop!
SUPPLIES USED:
