MASKING FLUID & WATERCOLOURS

 Masking fluid is a great way to retain white areas on your watercolour paper background before painting it, whether it's a whole background wash or a more detailed scenery painting. ATCs are small, so it's easier to do simplified paintings. So I have chosen to do mainly washes for the background, then fill in some more details with paints after the masking fluid has dried, the painting has been done, and then the masking fluid removed. It's a process of waiting for this technique, as you can't use a heat gun to hurry any of the process up, you must wait for the masking fluid to dry before painting, then wait for the painting to dry before removing the masking fluid. I used several tools to apply the masking fluid and found that diluting it with a little distilled water made the masking fluid easier to spread as it wasn't so thick.

"Dearly departed"
(A paintbrush was used to paint
the ghosts and houses.)

"Simplicity"

(I used a draftsman's ruling pen to

draw the bamboo and grasses in
masking fluid.)

"See beauty"
(A paintbrush was used to paint the
tree, rocks and grass on this atc)

"Saltwater"
(A paintbrush was used again to
paint the seafoam.)

"Live your story"
(A dip nib pen was used to draw this
small bush and grass, so the lines
are very fine. In fact, when I was
doing this, I could barely see
the masking fluid and hoped I
had it in the right place.)

"Choose to shine"
(I used a paintbrush for the dragonfly
shapes and the ruling pen for the
grass.)

STENCIL LIFT-OFF WITH WATERCOLOURS

 One of the reasons I love watercolours so much is that with most of the colours, you can lift off some paint to create lighter areas. This works particularly well with stencils as the following samples show. The beauty of this technique is you don't need to do anything special with laying down your watercolour background, it's just that, a background so slap that colour down. It can be a single colour, some granulating colours or multiple colours. They are all tied together when you use the stencil to remove some of the paint and then add your die-cuts or imagery on top. Gel pens and sparkly paint can also help to elevate these to the next level. I've tried to keep these fairly simple to not detract from the beautiful watercolour paints, particularly some of the granulating or mica shift paints.

"Let's play a game"
(I've wanted to use this hangman charm
for quite a while and I thought it suited
this atc perfectly.)

"Use your wings"
(I kept the watercolour paint more contained
on this background. The paint is a Mica
Supervision granulating paint and splits
into blue and gold. I made the feathers
and the bird from washi tape.)


"Champagne"


"We live but for a moment"
(Only 2 colours of granulating paint were
used for this one with a little metallic gel
pen for the details in the water and weeds.)

"Seas the day"
(The jellyfish are cut from vellum. It's very
difficult to see the shimmer paints used on
this one, trust me, it's very sparkly!)

"Let life surprise you"
(You don't have to cover the whole of the
background with the stencil, just partially
taking away some of the paint works well too.)