Coloring 101: Twinkling H2Os

Twinkling H2Os come as small pots of shimmery gorgeousness. They are dry, and just require water to activate. Since Twinkling H2Os are incredibly easy to use and so sparkly, I'm a huge fan of using them for coloring large areas at once. There are lots of watercolor tutorials online and at SCS if you need the basics of more detailed watercoloring, but my method is unbelievably easy.



Start with a piece of watercolor paper. I use the Arches blocks available at the big box stores like Michael's or Hobby Lobby. It's a high-quality hot-press watercolor paper, and the block keeps the paper from buckling as much as it will if you use a regular watercolor paper pad or loose sheets. (Note: You can use a butter knife to separate your painted sheet from the block once it's dry). Hot-press paper is smoother than cold press, so if you want texture, choose cold press.

To paint large blocks of wash, wet the paper with plain water using a large flat wash brush. Then load the brush with paint and add the wet paint to the wet paper. You can load more paint and keep working the color as long as it stays wet. If you get too much color, you can use the corner of a Bounty paper towel (doesn't leave lint) to soak up extra and then add more water. It's a very forgiving technique and you can get really creative with blending different colors, too. I generally keep it simple. Bet that surprises you, eh?

Once your wash is dry, you can stamp all over it with a good black ink. I used Palette Noir, my go-to black ink for pretty much anything. Memento would also work well. I do this before removing the paper from the block because it stays flatter. You will see some buckling of the paper, but it's minor.



Then just start cutting. These images were mostly easy to cut and it didn't take as long as I thought it would to finish. I use small Cutterbee scissors because their very fine points are great for snipping into tight spaces.



From here, you can do whatever you want with all these lovely, shimmery images. Here are two cards I made just lining them up over text backgrounds. Because the images are completely colored, you don't have to worry about matching cardstock or using watercolor card bases. These are my usual PTI cardstock cards.


Wouldn't these make pretty gift sets?



As you can see, Twinkling H2Os don't have to be intimidating. Used in this simple way, they pack a big punch!

OLW4: Oh.My.Gosh. Y'all are doing a great job with this! I've had almost no time to comment and promise to get to all of them later today. Yesterday was DH's birthday, and I'm volunteering at the Scholastic Book Fair a lot this week. But thank you so much for participating in my OLW challenges!