Watercolouring with Silkies

I bought some Imagination Craft Silkies cheap at the QVC Outlet recently & this is my first real attempt to paint with them. I didn't use the supplied brush because it wouldn't allow me to create the fine detail I needed.  For the main image, which is from an Imagination Crafts decoupage stamp set, I painted the background in diluted Apple Lace, then coloured the leaves with it undiluted. The flowers were painted in Sunset Satin and Firecracker Satin, and I did two layers of the smaller flower & three of the larger one, layering them up with Collall dimensional glue.  American Crafts Pop! Microbeads were used for the flower centres, stuck on with Cosmic Shimmer glue.

For the background strip I masked off a section of the card & used diluted Apple Lace again, then stamped smaller individual stamps from this decoupage set & another Imagination Crafts set to create the background pattern.  This was where I got really creative!  Using Memento Tuxedo Black ink on an  Inkssentials Cut-n-Dry Pen Nib, I drew along the edge of the strip a few times to match the edge of the stamped main image.  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, despite the fact that both decoupage & shiny finishes really aren't normally my sort of crafting!  It's good to go out of your comfort zone sometimes.  My late father was a very talented watercolour artist. I thought about him a lot while I was making this card & I think he'd have liked the finished result.

Cardstock: Base - Colotech Plus 300gsm, Flowers - Southfield Stationers 160gsm

Stamps: Imagination Crafts decoupage range

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Paints: Imagination Craft Silkies

Microbeads: American Crafts Pop!