Taylored Expressions: Fintastic Day

I have a friend who is an avid mermaid collector.  (She recently found a Christmas stocking in the shape of a mermaid tail!)  Her birthday is next week and the theme was a no-brainer.  I also realized it would give me a good chance to continue getting comfortable with watercolors because what do you need with a mermaid??  Water.  And color!!


I wanted to try a stencil but I quickly realized as I was poking around for some tips and hints that it's a problem because watercolors bleed under the stencil.  But I figured it wasn't a problem for this card since I was doing an ocean and I didn't need totally clean and neat lines.

After taping down the paper and the Go with the Flow Stencil, I added a couple drops of Cookie Monster Liquid Watercolors and a couple drops of Shimmer Liquid Watercolor.  I painted the top part of the stencil, section by section.  I wasn't being totally neat and tidy, but I didn't just color over everything because I wanted to have some definition.  Then I dipped my brush in some water before dipping it in the the watercolor mixture so that the next rows were slightly lighter.  I did this about five times to get to the bottom so that the bottom sections are quite light.  Then I dipped my brush in water one more time and painted the lightest shade over the entire ocean. 

The shimmer is important.  Check out how it looks on the water, plus I painted just some uncolored shimmer on the fish!  LOVE this stuff!!


I am having a lot of fun with the liquid watercolors.  I'm not sure that I would have said that a few weeks ago.  Have I mentioned that I like being in control - and watercolors tend to do their own thing?  But I've learned that there really are ways to use them that are stunning and not particularly hard!  I've stepped out of my comfort zone and feeling pretty good about it.  I can't say they are my go-to coloring method now, but they definitely have a place in my crafting!
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