Inky Fairy Designs: Playing with Dr. Ph. Martin's Radiant Concentrated Water Color

Hi Everyone! I have a fun post I want to share with you today. I was just playing around in a couple of my watercolor journals this past week and I thought why not share what I created?! A lot of times, if I'm not creating for a special deadline, I honestly don't blog about it. There are days I create just for me and that's ok but I was so happy with the way these things turned out and I learned some things along the way so I might as well share.

Before we get started, I want to mention that while I did receive the some of the products mentioned in this post as part of the Blitsy Creative Team, this post is not sponsored in anyway by Blitsy OR Dr. Ph. Martin's and all the opinions are my, slightly watercolor amateurish, own. I'm still learning about this medium myself! ;)

While, I did create this page in my Strathmore Watercolor 140lb Visual Journal after I did the glazing experiment I'll go into below - I wanted to share it first because in my opinion it's pretty and colorful and just fun!

I am using the Dr. Ph. Martin's Radiant Concentrate Watercolor Set A. You could also purchase individual colors if you wanted to during the Blitsy Daily Deal HERE. (This deal does end Feb 22, so if you are trying the link after that and it doesn't work, that is why.) I used nearly all the colors in my set for this page - I just had fun experimenting with layering different colors over others as I learned from the glazing chart below.

I love stamping on my journal pages and today I used the Better stamp from the Prima Creating In Faith Collection by Jamie Dougherty. I have not loved a collection so much as this one - I've used the stamps and papers numerous times since I received them. What made this page so fun and unique with this stamp is that when I initially stamped it, due to the rough watercolor paper, it didn't stamp entirely clear. Once I was done watercoloring, I went over the lines with a few different sizes of Sakura Graphic and Micron pens as well as a white Sharpie and white Signo Uni-Ball pen to make the letters and design pop.

Ok, so now on to the exercise I've been mentioning in this post - a Glazing Chart. You may be wondering what exactly a glazing chart is! Well, Simply put - it is when you criss cross two colors over each other and the color that over laps is the glaze. You are glazing one color on top of another which is a lot of what watercoloring is! I saw this chart done for the first time in an awesome online watercolor class you can still find available HERE. I learned so much in that class! My chart isn't nearly as pretty or perfect as the one in that class, but I was just wanting to do it for fun and see how it worked so I pulled out my large Strathmore 400 Series Watercolor Journal (the most divine watercolor journal EVER I have to say) and just started making some lines down my page with my 3/4 Flat Brush. I had just enough room for all the colors to run vertical on my page.

I did run out of room making my horizontal lines so I wasn't able to glaze with brown or black but that didn't really concern me. I think I pretty much know how black would shade each color on its own and I'm able to see how each color glazes over top the brown and black. Here you can see a beautiful example of glazing where the Juniper Green overlaps Violet and creates this gorgeous blue violet!

At the top here you can see how even though I left the colors to dry from my vertical stripes overnight before starting my horizontal stripes, the colors instantly started to react to the water immediately in some areas. This gives us blears like you can see in the top row with the Lemon Yellow and Orange horizontal stripes.

For the most part, this experiment is a success though because I can see what colors blend nicely or not so nicely so when I go to do my own paintings, I can pull this out to keep in mind. I could also start to mix my own custom colors for any that particularly stand out to me like here in the bottom right - a beautiful magenta is created with Cherry Red and Turquoise Blue. If you are newer to watercolors like myself, I highly encourage you to create some glazing charts with any watercolors you have in your stash. This works with them all and it is such an amazing learning experience - sure it's not super fun, but I think the information gained is truly invaluable when it comes to putting that particular watercolor set to practical use in your paintings and cards! If you don't have watercolors, these are such a great set to get to try them out. You get so much pigment in the bottles and a wide variety of colors to start. I do want to point out that while these are great for beginners, they are not lightfast which means they will fade if exposed to prolong sunlight.

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Until next time,

Happy Crafting!