Techniques 2 & 3 Watercolor on Baby Wipes & Paper Towels

This week Patricia & I are working on Techniques 2 & 3 from Bernie Berlin's book "Artist Trading Card Workshop: Create, Collect, Swap". I'm excited to say that another artist, Cheri Phillips, is going to join us in this process. :-)

Patricia did hers first and made some amazing backgrounds on baby wipes using spray mists (which she's already used). I tried that and wasn't as pleased with my results...maybe I didn't wait long enough for the paint to dry but the sheets were very dark and not worth showing.

Next, I got out the watercolors and made 4 pages rather quickly. What I did was layer my sheets; bottom later was cardstock, then 2 layers of paper towels and then the top layer a baby wipe. ( I told you I'm not very patient, wanted to do them all at once - LOL)

What I liked most about this technique is that I didn't have to worry about too much water. If I didn't like the depth/amount of color I had...I just added some water and the color went on through to the next layer under it. When I was pleased with the top baby wipe layer, I used a brayer to "push" the paint through to the layer underneath. I removed the baby wipe layer and did the same thing to the paper towels. A really cool thing happened on the bottom layer...the paper towel left the color on the card stock in a waffle-weave type pattern like the pattern in the paper towel. Very cool side effect!

Thanks, Bernie, I love this technique and will use it again & again. Here is a photo of the final results and the beginnings of an ATC using the paper towels & wipes as a background (they are torn up and stamped). One of my new favorite things to do.

The layers in the photo are from top to bottom: an ATC made with torn up pieces from all the others with a paisley pattern stamped on it, cardstock showing the waffle-weave design, a dried-out kitchen wipe, 3 sheets of paper towels & a baby wipe (with teddy bear!). You can click on the photos to see more detail in the background if you want. Enjoy!