Using the Watercolor Markers from Color Kaleidoscope

Hey Magpies, Rachel here with some more Color Kaleidoscope from Vicki Boutin and today I am showing you some backgrounds I made using the Watercolor Markers. I was originally going to show you these layouts next month but I was too excited to share them and talk about the markers so I’ve moved it up to share today! I will be sharing layouts made using the awesome Mixed Media Backgrounds Paper Pad on April 2nd and then more Color Kaleidoscope layouts again on April 16th. It is such an amazing collection, Color Kaleidoscope, I have a lot to say about it again because it’s all just so fabulous!
The Watercolor Markers are amazing! I did one layout using them on my last blog post on March 2nd. Today I have 3 more for you. In all honesty, the markers are expensive, I do appreciate that it’s a large outlay but I think that’s the only con about them. I will try and give you my honest opinion about them here. I think the markers are pretty fabulous. The colours they create are simply amazing. They’re so bright and vivid and just WOW! They’re also a lot cleaner to use than a lot of other mixed media so I think if you’re a crafter who doesn’t like getting too messy, they are great. They would be fabulous for taking to crops as well, so much less messy and easy to transport. I am not sure about drying times though, I usually create things at night and then leave them to dry on my desk overnight so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think things take too long to dry and you can speed that process up with a heat tool if you are at a crop or needing things to dry fast. I am in no way a mixed media scrapper I don’t think. I want to be, but I’m not very good at it, these markers made things pretty simple!
For this first LO I actually took process photos. I know I sometimes see mixed media LO’s and I want to know ‘exactly’ how they were created because I’m not that good at mixed media. I usually don’t take photos cause I don’t know if something will work and then when it does work, I think damn, should have taken photos of what I was doing! I will try and explain exactly what I did and if you do have any questions, please pop over to the HLM FB Group and post them there. I definitely found that using cardstock I had applied Gesso to, much easier to use the markers on than plain cardstock. These layouts are all done on Vicki Boutin Mixed Media Foundations Cardstock which I applied Gesso to using the Silicon Art Wedge. I have not played with the Art Wedge much yet but I do love it! I found that if I used the markers on plain cardstock and added water to it, nothing happened. If I used the markers on Gessoed cardstock and added water, magic happened!
What I did here was the ‘packaging technique’. If you google that you will find lots of videos showing you exactly how to do it. What it is, is putting something on a piece of plastic ‘packaging’ and then kissing it to your cardstock. So here is a pic of how I added the markers to the plastic. I just dripped some drops on and then used the marker tip to smoosh the colour around a bit.

Then you flip the plastic over (I used a piece of the backing from some puffy Thickers here) and smoosh it down on your cardstock. I pushed the colour on with my fingers and picked the plastic up and ‘kissed’ it down a few more times and sometimes sort of wash the plastic over the background to spread the colour around where I wanted it. What was left I would dot on the edges to make ‘splatters’.

So this was the finished splodging of colour. I gave this a little while to dry cause you can probably see that there is some darker colour pooling at the edges and that is still wet.

And this is where the magic of these markers is I think, add some water and see what happens! It’s amazing. I used a cheap travel spray bottle and just spritzed over the top. It is wonderful, I totally love what happens!

I think I came back for a second addition of water and added some real big droplets, then left it to dry. This was my finished background before I started adding things to it.

 
I actually didn’t add much to this LO cause it didn’t need a lot, the background adds enough business to it I think. So I picked through my Ephemera packs, the Icons and the Frames & Journalling and picked out a few pieces to layer behind my photo. Then I used some of the stickers from the 6×12″ Accent Stickers sheet, my title is from the Phrase & Icon Puffy Thickers pack and I dotted around some of the hearts and crosses from that pack too.

Here is a quick close up in case you can’t see all the cool Ephemera layers behind my photo and all the different stickers & Thickers.


From one extreme to the other this time because I didn’t take any process photos of this one sorry! It was a total accident as well, a very happy accident cause I love the end effect but I didn’t mean this to happen! What I did was found a bowl the size I wanted and put that on my background cardstock. I drew around that with the pink Watercolor Marker so I got my first circle done and it had a nice crisp line around it too. Then I used the turquoise, green and yellow markers as well and added extra circles to the outside and inside of the pink one. I have to admit, at this stage things did not look very pretty. I wish I had taken process photos but I didn’t 🙁 So it looked a bit ugly and I spritzed water over the circles. It looked great! I loved it and I put it aside to dry. Well….. this is where the ‘accident’ happened. I think it was very sunny that day and I had put the cardstock on top of something quite thin, so the cardstock buckled and my water all started moving towards the edges. I came back and found it all buckled up and was like oh no dammit! I thought it was ruined so I put it aside.
I saw it later on when it had dried and gone more flat again and wow, I loved it! So if you want to get an effect like this, I would do some circles with the markers. Then spritz with water and spritz some more, you want quite a lot of water on there. Then start moving your cardstock to start moving the colour around. You can do this in stages, do some, see what happens, add more water and keep going.
So as I did above, I really haven’t added much to this one because the background is busy enough, it didn’t need a lot. I just used some strips of papers I had lying on my desk under my photo. I used the ‘oh snap’ title from the Puffy Thickers pack and the ‘smile for the camera’ is from the Phrase & Icon Chipboard Thickers pack. I dotted around some other chipboard Thickers and some of the Puffy Sticker circles too.

Here’s a little detail shot, I did use some bits and bobs from Vicki Boutin’s last collection, Field Notes as well, some of the puffy and chipboard Thickers.


On to the next LO and again, I do not have any process photos of this one either sorry. Basically I just took the Watercolor Markers and drew them on a piece of gessoed cardstock. I just dropped some spots of colour down and then used the marker tip to drag the colour up and down. Then I did another colour and tried to blend them a little bit as I went along. It was so easy! Seriously easy. Then I spritzed and dropped some big drops of water on top and left it to dry. When it was dry I used a chevron stencil and some white embossing paste over the top, the white paste has picked up some of the dye from the markers which I like.
I wanted to use a contrasting colour on top of my background to give that pop so I reached for my 6×8@ paper pad and used a sheet of that. Some of the Washi Tape and my title is from the last Field Notes collection. I couldn’t resist adding some of the Doodlebug, Sweet Summer, Tropical Punch Sprinkles as well because my friend Riki and I were pretty drunk in this photo! I didn’t really need to add much because the background does all the talking here, how bright and lushious are those colours!


My last layout and I really struggled with this one but I wanted to include it to show you another technique for using the Watercolor Markers to make a background. So it’s not my best work, please forgive me! I did the background and then couldn’t settle on what to put on top of it. But the background could not have been simpler to make. I just brayered the markers on there. I took a couple of pictures cause I know some people will want to know exactly how I did it. So I picked the orange, yellow and red markers. I started with the red and squeezed out some drops from the markers on to some packaging plastic and then just rolled my brayer over them, picked up the colour and then rolled over my gessoed cardstock. It really is that simple. If you don’t like it, add some more. If you don’t like it again, add another colour and if you hate it all, you can always add some white paint over the bits you don’t like to dull them down a bit or even cover them completely.

Next I added orange (and didn’t take photos of that stage for some reason) and then yellow. Brayering is really easy to do and you get a different result every time.

Of course I spritzed with water when it was dry as well, I absolutely love what happens to the markers when you put water over the top!

I actually got out some Vicki Boutin stamps from the Field Notes collection, the Escape Clear Stamp & Die Set and stamped the small circles and dots. I also used the Vicki Boutin Rose Gold Glaze on a lines stencil I had in my stash to add some extra texture to my background too. Then I stuck some stuff on there! The black and white striped paper I used on here is super old Maggie Holmes from a few years ago but it’s one of my favourites and I bulk bought many sheets of it! My title uses Puffy Thickers and some from the older Field Notes collection too. I used some of the round Puffy Stickers and then added in the super cute little globe Puffy Sticker and woman hiking 6×12″ Accent Sticker from the Jen Hadfield Chasing Adventures collection.

And here’s a quick close up so you can see the awesome colours in the background and also the wonderful texture from the Rose Gold Glaze.

 
In summing up, I think the Watercolor Markers are the thing for you if you want to create some mixed media backgrounds but you don’t like getting too messy! They are super vivid and colourful and I adore that about them. The range of colours in the pack is just perfect as well. I hope this has given you some ideas on how they can be used to easily create wonderful backgrounds. There are probably loads more ideas for using them online, I know Vicki Boutin has done a cool video showing how to stamp circles using a paper cup and the markers around the edge, then spritzing with water. That looks super cool! I am looking forward to sharing some layouts using the amazing Mixed Media Backgrounds Pad on April 2nd so I’ll see you then Magpies!