More than a swatch: how one card design changes with six VersaFine Clair ink colours
I do love a swatch. Anyone who knows me well, knows one of the first things I do with any paint, watercolour, pencils, pens or ink pads, is create swatches.
There’s something about lining up your ink pad colours, seeing how they behave on paper or different substrates, how it stamps, how it settles - it gives you the time to begin to know your products.
But for me, a swatch is rarely just a swatch. It’s usually the starting point for an idea.
Recently, I’ve been working with six of the latest VersaFine Clair ink pad colours: Lemonade, Carrot Orange, Melon Soda, Adriatic Sea, Dahlia Purple & Wisteria Purple. Instead of simply swatching them and moving on, I wanted to sit with them a little longer. To see what each one could do on its own.
Why I always start with a swatch?
Swatching is one of those small, quiet parts of the process that often gets overlooked, but it tells you so much. Not just the colour itself, but:
- how crisp the stamped line is
- how the ink sits on your chosen cardstock
- how it behaves if you plan to add water
I use VersaFine Clair for the majority of my stamping - probably around 75% of my projects - because more often than not, I go on to watercolour my images. It holds its line beautifully without bleeding, which makes it incredibly reliable.
Lemonade, Carrot Orange, Melon Soda, Adriatic Sea, Dahlia Purple and Wisteria Purple
So for me, swatching isn’t just about choosing a colour. It’s about understanding how the ink will work, and how that colour will influence the finished stamped image.
One colour, one idea
For this set, I gave myself a simple constraint: one ink colour, one design.
It’s not something I would usually do, but keeping everything else the same allowed each colour to really stand on its own.
Taking things one step further, I made a square card for each of the six colours using the same design and Tim Holtz stamps (available through Personal Impressions).
It’s something I come back to often in my own work - looking more closely at what one thing can do, rather than reaching for something new.
When everything else is consistent, you really start to notice what the colour is doing.
- Some feel softer.
- Some feel bolder.
- Some sit quietly in the background, while others take over completely.
From swatch to pattern
Alongside the handmade card colour swatches, I also created a second set using my own stamp designs, Be Not Afraid for Art Inspirations.
I love layering - creating backgrounds and then adding focal points - and using my own designs, knowing how they work together, was perfect for that.
Again, I kept to one colour for each DL card design.
It’s still a swatch in many ways - but it’s also the beginning of a finished piece, or even just the start of a future idea.
A note on VersaFine Clair ink pads
If you’ve followed my work for a while, you’ll know I reach for VersaFine Clair again and again.
It’s dependable, it stamps cleanly, and most importantly for me, it works beautifully with water. That combination means I can move from stamping into painting without worrying about the lines breaking down.
Because I use it so often, I’ve started putting together a simple resource sheet - something to help you understand how VersaFine Clair works, where it works best, and just as importantly, where it doesn’t.
There’s also a video to go alongside this which I’m currently finishing off. I can put videos together quite quickly, but the editing is the part I tend to overthink - wanting to keep things concise, but still useful.
So yes, I do love a swatch.
But more than that, I love what a swatch can become.
Until next time, take care,
xxx
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