Botanical Post Series: Soft Watercolour Cards with PI Pencils & Stamps
This card uses a stamp set that has a bit of a story behind it.
I designed the Personal Impressions Postage, Leaves & Flowers Banner stamp set, using imagery that Personal Impressions already had available. My name isn't on the packaging, but I was involved in putting the designs together, so it's always a little different using the finished stamps in my own projects.
For this card, I wanted to keep things soft and fairly simple, using the botanical images with PI Pencils rather than trying to do too much with them.
The stamps
The set combines postal details with leaves and flowers, which is what originally appealed to me about the imagery. I could see it working for cards, but also as part of larger mixed-media or art-journalled pieces.
I also used the Personal Impressions Be-Leaf Sentiments stamp set for the greeting.
One of the things I particularly like about designing stamp sets is thinking beyond the obvious use of the finished image. An individual flower doesn't have to stay part of the original composition. You can stamp it separately, colour it, cut it out and use it as another layer.
That's what I've done on this card.
What I used
- Personal Impressions Postage, Leaves & Flowers Banner stamp set
- Personal Impressions Be-Leaf Sentiments stamp set
- Personal Impressions Woodless Watercolour Pencils
- VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink pad
- Watercolour card
- Paintbrush
- 3D foam pads
Making the card
I started by stamping the main image onto watercolour card using VersaFine Clair Nocturne.
I then coloured the image with PI Pencils, building up the colour gradually and using water to soften and blend it.
For the background, I used the Sky Blue pencil around the outside of the stamped image. I applied it quite heavily and then worked over it with a damp paintbrush.
This is one of the things I like about the pencils. You can put quite a bit of colour down and then use water to move it around, so you can decide how soft or strong you want the background to be.
I stamped one of the sentiments onto a separate piece of watercolour card and added it to the card using 3D foam pads.
Then I stamped some of the individual flowers onto scraps of watercolour card, coloured them, cut them out and added them around the sentiment.
I didn't have a fixed plan for where they would go. Some tuck behind the sentiment, while others sit on top of the layers. I think those little decisions are what stop the card from looking too structured.
Once everything was finished, I mounted the panel onto a 7" x 5" landscape card base.
And these stamps aren't just for cards
I've also used these stamps in art journalling.
I'm not sharing the full pages here because they were made as part of an in-person workshop, but I wanted to include a little glimpse of how the stamps can be used differently.
The individual flowers work particularly well as collage elements. You can stamp them, colour them, cut them out and then use them wherever you need another layer on a page.
That's something I often look for when I'm choosing stamps. I don't necessarily want a set that only works in the way it was designed. If I can take individual elements and use them somewhere completely different, I know I'm going to get much more use from it.
One card, lots of possibilities
What started as a fairly simple botanical card turned into a combination of stamping, colouring, cutting and layering.
And that's really what I enjoy about working this way. The stamp gives me the starting point, but the PI Pencils and the extra stamped elements let me change the look as I go.
This is the first card in the Botanical Post series, so there are more to come.
Until next time,
xxx
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