Beautiful Details - Day 2

One of the best things about this industry is the ability to take online classes to learn new techniques.  There are some fantastic artists of all kinds who inspire us and share their techniques with us. I am currently in a class with someone whose work I have admired for about a year now, Marika Rahtu.  She creates incredibly detailed cards by adding pen or pencil work to stamped images.   As you can see, the amount of detail is incredible!  So when I saw that Altenew Academy was having a class called "Beautiful Details" that she was teaching, I jumped on it.

I found Marika through the Altenew Blog because she is a member of their design team and started doing some video tutorials for them. I have been a fan and subscribed since day one of finding her.

While I am not nearly as good as Marika, I have been practicing a bit since March of this year and I can say with a great deal of satisfaction that I no longer stink at this. *Ü*  Practice does indeed help.  Marika's attitude is that in any practice we learn something for the next time and I have found that to be true.



Marika is not trained as an artist, nor is she "Copic Certified".  She is teaching and sharing those things that have worked for her from her personal experience. And really, I think those methods are the best anyway.

Our homework for the Day 2 lesson was to color something.  Yep, that's it.  I love to watercolor and I'm trying to improve with my other mediums as well. I started by stamping the outline images of the bloom and leaves from the Altenew Beautiful Day Stamp Set in Versamark and heat embossing them using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder on a panel of watercolor paper.

Since the idea is to add details using water soluable inks, the watercolor paper is a must. This stamp set is a layering set with 4 layers for the blooms and 3 for the leaves. Starting with the flowers first, one at a time, I stamped the 2nd layer of details using Lovely Lady Ink and then softened all of that with a waterbrush.  I learned this trick from watching Marika and I love how soft and sheer the color becomes when you do this.  It works best if you stamp one image, work it with a waterbrush (it takes almost zero effort) and then stamp the next one.  These inks don't work the same way Distress Inks do, so I only do one bloom at a time.  A lot of the dye inks become waterproof once they dry while Distress Inks are made to react with water.  It's easier to just work with one small area at a time.

For the leaves, I smooshed Ocean Tides Ink onto an acrylic block and picking it up with a water brush, painted the leaves.  I just go in and add additional layers after the previous layer dries.  Once those were done and my paper was completely dry, I cut them out using the Altenew Beautiful Day Coordinating Dies.

For the background panel, I did ink blending using a Mini Ink Blending Tool with Hibiscus Burst Ink, working on the diagonal from upper left to lower right. When I had that done, I mixed a tiny bit of water with Raspberry Fizz Ink on an acrylic block with a #4 Round Brush and splattered the darker color onto my background panel for added visual interest. Then I assembled everything to a top folding A2 card base made from Stamper's Select White.

This card uses supplies I already had on hand but if you are looking for any of the products, I have them linked for you.  The stamps & dies are available through Altenew or Simon Says Stamp.  The papers and inks are from Papertrey Ink's Perfect Match line of coordinating inks and cardstock.  I used Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper for this project which is available online at Amazon or at Hobby Lobby.  I take mine to Kinko's to be cut when I receive it.

Have a great weekend everyone. I'll have more projects to share in the next week or two from this class so I hope you'll come back then.  If you subscribe to my blog via e-mail, you'll always get a notification that I have a new post up on my blog.  You can also find me on Instagram and at Twinkling Paper Studio on Facebook.  I hope to see you there!