Under the Sea (by Pat)

Today sees the final post this month by our Guest Design Team member Pat. She has created a watery themed card to inspire you.

Pat writes:

Hi there everybody, this week I decided to go underwater, not literally though, the sea down here is still far too cold for that. I love the fun images found on the Steampunk fish sets- Steampunk Funky Fish and Steampunk Sea World, and I also used bubbles from the Floral Heart, Distress Inks and a white Posca Pen.

I started with the background using a piece of acrylic sheet to transfer the spritzed inks to the white card, building up the colour and drying in between the layers until I got the coverage I wanted. I then stamped the images, the bottom ones in green, and the seahorses and nautiluses in blue. In order to keep it uniform I extended the outlines of the seabed by using some green ink on the end of a pokey tool which worked quite well, as a black pen would have been too dark. I know strictly speaking you should heat emboss over Distress Inks if you are going to watercolour, but I didn't want hard lines, and in the few places where the lines were blurred a little I used a bit of coloured pencil to fill them in. I did on the other hand make sure that the waterbrush was just damp and not overly wet.

I finished by stamping the bubbles and darkened the edges with a bit more blue ink, and used the Posca Pen to add some white to some of the bubbles and the eyes of the seahorses and nautiluses.

Thank you for taking a look today, and as this is my last Guest Designer post for now I'll say cheerio, but will be back later in the year.

Best Wishes,

Pat x