Oddball Art Stamps Technique A Week: Pencil Resist with Dark Watercolored Background

Hello stamping friends! I'm here today with a new Technique a Week Post for Oddball Art Stamps. This technique is a bit of a twist on the old Pencil and Watercolor method that we've used for AGES. I tweaked the final tutorial and project from what was advertised on the blog the past month, but I'm very happy with the results, and I hope you are inspired to try a new Technique!

Pencil Resist and Dark Watercolor Backgrounds

This technique was originally going to be Crayon Resist and Black Backgrounds, but I couldn't color the way I wanted to for the scene I created using Crayons. Fortunately, Prismacolor Pencils have a similar waxy medium when used with full coverage on paper. I can color MUCH better with those, so...perfect! Note that if you ARE doing a more simple background, especially something geometric or just outlines, crayons would also work great as a substitute. And they are way cheaper since you can steal them from your kid's art bin!

Ok! Assemble your supplies. You will need an image to color & paint, brushes, or water brushes, or whatever you want to use. Water if you need it. Paints and pencils. 

Here is the scene I created using No. 323 Sid the Seahorse, along with No. 322 Seashells. You probably can't tell, but I did NOT print this on watercolor paper. It's regular old Neenah 110# bright white cardstock. The only thing to remember with this type of paper is that you don't want to soak it when you're painting. Less is more. You can always go back over it later to deepen the colors.

The first step is to get coloring!! As I mentioned earlier, you can use other coloring choices for this, as long as the color sits on top of the image and the paper (i.e. not markers) and can resist the water/paint when we get the that step. Oil pastels, pencils of various types, crayons, etc.

He's so cute!! I love him! Let's see if you can get a better view of the shiny wax-like look that the pencils give as a finish. Here's the same image, same time, but held at an angle to the light.

Now, keep coloring! You want to color everything you are going to color before you start painting. I finished off the sea floor and also the bubbles and floating starfish.

Cute! It's ready for painting now. I'm NOT A PAINTING EXPERT. I have done these resist techniques before, and I do like playing around with watercolors a bit. LOTS of people are better than me! But here's what I did. Starting with the darkest color at the bottom of the scene, I watercolored several layers of black. This is where the water is the deepest and darkest and I wanted to really show that you can indeed do this and then paint DIRECTLY OVER YOUR COLORED IMAGE even with black paint, and you will not have any problems whatsoever with the paint damaging your image or bleeding through or doing any kind of bad, awful thing you don't want it to. If necessary, you can dab where the paint/water beads up on top of your colored spaces so it doesn't run or smear as you work and move the paper around. Just blot, don't rub. 

Yay! We're having fun now! Ok as mentioned above, I used super cheap, super generic watercolor paints that my kids had in their bin. Why? Because...you don't have to invest a million bucks in new supplies just to be able to try something new! You can improvise and use whatever you've got on hand that matches the minimal requirements to make the technique or process work. I have many types of paint and painting mediums (watercolor crayons, watercolor powders, shimmerz paints, mica sprays that you can use to paint, etc.), but I wanted you ALL to know you can achieve all of this with THE MOST BASIC of equipment. I admit I have my eye on those lovely Gansai Tambi paints, but I haven't gotten around to getting them yet. I hear that they allow for richer/deeper colors, which is very cool. I'm sure I'll get them at some point, but in the meantime, this works great!

Right. Next is more paint! The water is getting lighter as we get closer to the surface, so plan accordingly. Over the course of this painting, I used black, grey, and 4 shades of blue.

Ooh! He's so much fun! I want a Sid...

You're done! Decorate and assemble the rest of your project in any way that you envision. I'm a cardmaker, so he's going on a card! I created the scene to take up the entire card front, with the dimension here mainly being in the coloring and painting. I did pop the sentiment panel up on foam tape, and I have added Nuvo drops to the bubbles, Stickles to the smaller spots that Sid has, and a few pearls for good measure in this underwater world!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If I've inspired you to create something, please link it up so I can take a look! Have a fabulous day and thanks for dropping by.