Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Watercolor For The Grads

Hey folks!

Today I'm sharing set of graduation cards that I made using three different brands of watercolors.

I'm a big fan of watercolor and and even bigger fan of Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Inks, but I just recently purchased the Zig Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush 36 Piece Set and the Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi 24 Color Set. I was really curious how these compared to each other. It's one thing to watch someone else use them in a video, but I'm a hands on, decide for myself kind of girl, so...

It's always fun to try new things! That and I'm a sucker for anything labeled Watercolor, but let's not talk about that, shall we? 

If you're interested in any of the products that I've used, I will have links for you at the end of the post!


I used Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Cardstock (it's my fave) for all three cards and I purposely kept my coloring loose. I was more interested in the flow and blending of each as apposed to detail.

I already knew how the Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Inks (right) would play out, but I was surprised how different the other 2 were to them. The Tambai's (middle) are thicker and creamier. They are definitely paints. Since they are thick they are more opaque. I used the "Sprinkles" stamp from the Balloon Stamp Set by Life. Love. Paper for Studio Calico and I noticed because of how thick Tambai's are my stamp would "slip" across the surface of the paper. Kinda of like trying to stamp on acetate. Also, even though I used the same colors as the Distress Inks, the opacity of these paints make them seem bolder. I really dig these, but I''m pretty sure these won't be a "go to" watercolor for me. I will definitely save these for certain projects.

As for the Zig Kuretake Clean Color Real Brush Set on the left? Wow! Love. Love on so many levels! When I got these in the mail and I opened them I said "Happy Mother's Day To Me!", but after using them, I had to say it again! They are super vibrant and really easy to use. The brush tip is the best for detail, but even doing a quick scribble and letting the water do the rest is really awesome! I've used these on 2 other cards that are more detailed watercoloring and I will share them soon, but I really enjoyed this. One other thing I liked about these is, they blend beautifully. In the set I have, I don't have any one color to match Distress Cracked Pistachio or the Tambai Pale Aqua, so I mixed Cobalt Blue and Pale Green and it was spot on.

To keep them all simple I used the same stamp sets, paper and embellishments on all three. As I said the "Sprinkles" stamp is from  Balloon Stamp Set by Life. Love. Paper for Studio Calico as well as the Dotted Lines on the Distress Card and the Triangles on the Zig Clean Color Card. Oh and if you need a really good all around stamp set, then I highly recommend the Winnie & Walter Big Bold You Set. Oodles of phrases can be made with this bad boy. It's groovy.

I mounted all three panels on Simon Says Stamp Doll Pink Paper. I'm building of my SSS paper stock, because the colors are so versatile and the weight is perfect for just about everything!

That's it! Easy Peasy. In my next post I will be sharing my second Pay It Forward Card and the details on how our donation went!

Until next time!

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful cards! Which side of the Ranger watercolor paper did you use?

    ReplyDelete
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