Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Watercolor Paper Towel Technique

Last week I shared this card....


and lots of folks asked to know what technique I used to create the background. 
I have to tell you that I discovered this technique quite by accident a few years ago.
I had been playing with some Distress Re-inkers and was cleaning up my work space.  I wiped up some of the inks with a damp paper towel and set is aside while I put a few more things away.  Well, when I went to toss the paper towel in the trash along with other garbage I noticed the cool pattern the damp towel had made on the paper...
Of course this sparked an idea and I pulled everything back out and began to experiment.


Watercolor Paper Towel Technique

watercolor paper towel technique 001 (2)

Supplies:

Distress Ink, Stain, or Re-Inker
Paper Towels
Water
Paper

Instructions:

1. The first thing you need to do is dampen your paper towel with some water...use as much or as little as you would like.  Sometimes I get my really soaked, other times just so the entire towel is wet but not dripping.

2. Now dab a bit of ink on your work surface and wipe it up with the wet towel.
watercolor paper towel technique 002 (2)

watercolor paper towel technique 003 (2)

3. Now dab the inky towel onto your cardstock!  If you get too much of one look, re-wad the towel and pounce some more!

watercolor paper towel technique 004 (2)

 I like to use 1-3 colors per design...much more than that and the design starts to look muddy.

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And here is what it looks like using all three  of my inky paper towels...

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You can add some real interest to your finished background by squeezing out small puddles of inky water....
watercolor paper towel technique 007

then drying it immediately.

watercolor paper towel technique 008

Here are my single color  sheets....  you will notice on a couple I used more ink while the broken china I used only a small amount...

watercolor paper towel technique 009

watercolor paper towel technique 010

watercolor paper towel technique 011

You end up with some really awesome looking background papers...

watercolor paper towel technique 001

watercolor paper towel technique 002

Here are my multi color examples...

watercolor paper towel technique 012

And a couple projects putting these nifty backgrounds to use....

watercolor paper towel technique 003


watercolor paper towel technique 004

And there you go!
A really fun and oh so easy technique that
makes you and your projects look super!

11 comments:

  1. Love those backgrounds! TFS

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  2. Love those backgrounds! TFS

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  3. Well this is just way to cool!! Tfs, Roni!

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  4. I like the finished product.Looks nice as sky.

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  5. Your creative mind never ceases to amaze me! So easy yet so pretty!

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  6. Cool- love this great background- and your great sample card : )

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  7. Love this! I did a similar thing to this but with scrunched up paper.

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  8. Thank you for this workshop. Very interesting backgrounds. I will try it too

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  9. Lovely effect. Looks like fun, too.

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  10. Love how these look with stamping in black.

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  11. Cool! This I will be trying soon!mthanks!

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Thanks for your thoughts and comments!