Technique of the Week: Stampboard Watercolor

Special thanks to Kae Pea from Rubbermoon for the inspiration for this technique!

This is actually not so much a technique as it is discovering a new (for me) medium. I recently was on Facebook, and I saw a live post from Kae Pea of Rubbermoon, where she was doing watercolor painting on clay board, or stampboard. 

By the way, I just want to take a moment to say if you have not "liked" Rubbermoon's page on Facebook, be sure to do that right now! She does live instructional videos, and posts lot of inspirational art. For that matter please "like" the Art 'n Soul page, and the Magenta page also, you won't regret it! 

Let me start out by saying that Kae Pea makes it look so very easy, but she has a lot of experience with painting. My big take-away from the experience is that it was just a lot of fun to paint on the stampboard. It's a very forgiving surface - no pilling, no warping. Kae Pea chose to paint on a 2"x 2" stamp board piece, and I chose a 3.5" x 5" piece. We do have lots of Stampboard in various sizes in stock at Art 'n Soul, as well as a tool for scraping (please read to the end of this technique where I mention scraping).

First I stamped my Magenta leaf image (0454.J) using Ranger Archival Sepia ink. I dried the image with a Ranger Heat-It tool, just by waving the heated air lightly over the board. Stamp board can bubble if it gets too hot, so be careful with this step.

I decided to paint the leaf images with Nuance, and chose Bright Yellow, Yellow Orange, Orange, Nutmeg, and Red. For the sky I chose Royal Blue, Aquamarine and Turquoise. I tapped some of each color into a palette  and added water mixed with a little Perfect Pearls powder for some shimmer.

In her video, Kae Pea had recommended to paint the image with water first to help the paint flow better. I worked in small areas at a time and layered the colors onto the leaf images. When I was happy with the leaves, I painted the three shades of blue all around the leaves as though they were falling through the sky.

At the end I added a little mica watercolor from an Artquest Palette in gold, copper and silver. I also flicked the mica watercolor over the images.

The last thing I did was to stamp a Magenta sentiment (Thinking of You 07.869.D) in the corner using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink.

One of the cool things about stampboard is that you can use a tool or craft knife and scrape paint off. You can create highlights, or just scrape away where you painted outside the lines. It's a very forgiving surface, and it took the paint very well and dried quickly. This project was a lot of fun to paint! I think this would be lovely as the front of a little book or journal. Kae Pea made her 2"x 2" pieces into little gift magnets - so cute!

You can see more photos of this project at my Backporch blog here.

This weekend is Recycled Rubber at Art 'n Soul, but NEXT weekend, on Saturday, October 8, from 10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., LISA LEE of Inchie Arts will be holding a fantastic workshop class: Garden Photo Cards. We cannot recommend this class to you enough. You will love it! Lisa will bring in her many, many fabulous photos of gardens and garden art, and lots and lots of inches, and you will be able to make as many cards as you can in 3 hours. These are stunning cards that you can use for almost any occasion. Here is the class description:

Lisa Lee of Inchie Arts is back with a relaxing workshop. She has a huge inventory of beautiful garden photos for your cards. Join her for a relaxing morning cutting up photos, mounting them on Art Squares and creating beautiful all occasion cards. You'll make at least 5 or 6 cards, more if time allows. Please bring your basic kit. 

As many of you know, Vesta Abel from Arizona was recently at Art 'n Soul to teach several amazing classes. Our customer and friend, Barbara Hojem took the Goddess Greeting card class, and came into the shop to show us one of her completed cards. We were blown away, and are sure that you will be too!

by Barbara Hojem

If you receive our email newsletter, or you have liked our page on Facebook, you know that we are having a HUGE Recycled Rubber event this weekend. Honestly we have rarely seen so many stamps, as well as lots of dies and punches. Lots and lots of other treasures to be found as well. We will be open for Recycled Rubber on Saturday, October 1st from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., and on Sunday, October 2nd from 12:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Please come! You will be glad you did.

Just some of the treasures that will greet you at Recycled Rubber at Art 'n Soul!

We have orders coming in soon from Penny Black and our large distributor with lots and lots of new merchandise, so check in with us very soon! We have also sent orders in to Memory Box and Impression Obsession. Check with us every day, you know how fast these orders fly in and then out!