Pencil colouring over coloured backgrounds - Timeless Tulips

The stamp set I'm using today is the Timeless Tulip stamp set from Mama Elephant. This has a lovely big floral bouquet of tulips perfect for colouring but also fits well on a 5 by 7-inch card. 

To start off, I have trimmed a sheet of distress watercolour down into 4 and using one of the pieces for the background.  I have a selection of blue/teal Inks to use, however you can use a variety of inks for this technique - regular distress inks or the oxides would work just as well. I'm taking each colour and squishing the pad onto a large acrylic block to transfer the ink and I went for an Ombre look. 

To help the inks blend, as well as to transfer onto the card and to give the look of watercolour background look, I spritzed the acrylic block well with clear water. Make sure you add enough water to make the inks move with one another. Then position the block onto your watercolour paper with the ink side facing down. Leave this on for about 15 seconds to allow the ink colour to soak in and transfer for a vivid bold look. 

Next, remove the acrylic block. Depending on how much water is on the block may mean it will pool as you remove it from your paper. You can use a paper towel to mop up any excess. I also rotated the panel to move the ink around, but I wasn't happy that look. So I just spritzed with some more water to remove the harsh lines that were forming.  Make sure you heat set the panel well or leave to dry overnight before you heat emboss your image. I tend to check if the panel is dry by sprinkling embossing powder over the top and if there is moisture left on the card it will stick to it.

The panel was placed in my stamping platform to get a good impression as the paper is textured so I could stamp it several times for a clean image. I used an embossing ink to stamp the tulips and I heat embossed this in white embossing powder. The white really pops against the inky background.

Now we're ready to add the coloured details. I used Faber Castel polychromos pencils as I love how they blend, but you can use any pencils you have to hand or prefer. I'm no expert when it comes to colouring with pencils, but I started with my darkest colour at the base of the petals, adding a basic layer of a dark, medium and light colour before going back with another layer to blend the colours together.

Once all the colouring was complete, I used a white gel pen to touch up my heat embossing where I may have gotten some colour on it. I hadn't positioned the block straight on my watercolour paper, so to fix this mistake, I just trimmed the panel down removing the white border. I foam mounted this panel onto a 5 by 7 card base and added a heat embossed 'for you' in the label on the bouquet - this sentiment is from the Timeless Tulip stamp set. Off-screen, I also added a few sequins to embellish the card.