I gave up entering card challenges around the end of last year, because I had too many cards on hand and usually never have any problem with coming up with an idea for a card project. I was leafing through some links today, and stumbled across the SBB challenge for June...a lovely dark and challenging moodboard and thought I should have a quick go at it...one doesn't have to actually enter a card after all. Let's play it by ear I thought, I will see if I can pull off a card that meets the criteria, simply and quickly...so I set to.
Here is the card I made...
The idea was to add some alcohol ink to a pallette, let it dry and then use it to colour, I think, some acetate, using the blending solution as one would water when watercolouring (TH put his solution into a water pen, but I just used a small paint brush as he said the waterbrush couldn't ever be used for anything else)...I wondered how it would work on paper. I don't like how normal cardstock pills up when applying watercolours, especially if you are after an intense colour, but sometime I want a clear white colour, not the more off-white of watercolour paper...
Anyhoo, I added some red pepper ink to a small plastic palette and waited for it to dry off (not too long), added a tiny pool of blending solution to another of the palette dishes, found a small paintbrush and got to work.
Firstly I soaked the white card flower die cut with clean blending solution, just by dropping it onto the whole of the small flower, not rubbing the surface at all.
Then, with a second clean brush, I dipped it in the bs and then into the dried red ai.
I gently brushed the loaded brush over the soaked surface, concentrating the deepest colour towards the calyx of the flower and letting it blend out towards the petals.
I did need to take the clean brush and drop a little more bs onto the part of the die cut where the ai colour ended as it did not really blend out too smoothly at first, but with a little more bs added to the petal end of the colour, it blended out pretty well when I gave it a few light strokes back towards the deeper colour area.
It dried quickly and the colour is pretty intense, with the blending looking pretty smooth and absolutely no destruction of the surface of the white cardstock.
I tried doing the same with Ripe Persimmon di and water and did not get nearly as satisfactory a result, the colour was not too bad but the paper responded badly to the water...I am happy with this and will use this technique again...
Better trot, things I should be doing!
Bye,
Di xx