Prince Charming

Here is another card for the MFT sketch challenge this week. I chose the MFT set Prince Charming, stamped the dragon, flames, and knight on white paper. Then I tried something new, water coloring with gel pens. I love it!! It is very time consuming, cause you can only work a small area at a time. You have to use a base ink that will not run with water. I used onyx black versafine and had no problems. You can use watercolor paper, but I didn’t on this card, I used some scrap paper, it’s not photo paper, but has a kind of slick finish, and it’s not thick paper. I don’t know if all gel pens work, but all the ones I picked up out of my pen holder did. I have lots of different brand cheap gel pens, the metallic ones really add shimmer.  I started with the dragon, and when I was finished, I was so pleased with it, I thought it was the best water coloring I had ever done. It really shimmered great!! When I was cutting it out, it seemed like I had more of the shimmer on my hand than was left on the dragon. So when I finished coloring the flames, the knight, and the extra shield, before I cut them out, I sprayed hairspray on them, it worked like a charm. All the dp’s are from DCWV, the stripes and dark flowers are from the Café Mediterranean matstack, and the white flowers are from the Citrus matstack. I used a dark green card base layered with cream. The big circle was stamped with a Clear Dollar Stamp from the set Designer Label Celebrations, in onyx black versafine, water colored with gel pens, then cut with a nestie circle die. The small circle was stamped with part of a stamp (You’re Hot) from the Prince Charming set, in barn door distress ink, also sponged around the edges, the rest was sponged with wild honey distress ink, then attached with a red brad. Prince charming was stamped with versamark, and embossed with faded jeans distress ep. The ribbon is run through holes punched with a MS border punch. The extra shield was added with a foam dot to pop it, a corner rounder punch was used on some of the corner, and I added a googly eye to the dragon.

This card was very hard to take a photo of, I must have taken 20 pictures before I found one that suited me, they kept coming out too dark, the colors were all way off, etc. At first I had it where I usually take them, that was too dark, then I put it beside a window, so outside light would come in on it, that was too dark, I wound up taking it outside, placing it on the picnic table with direct sunlight showing on it, before it came out looking anything like it does in real life. The close-up was taken indoors, see the difference in the colors? The shimmer shows up though, click on it for a larger view.

To water color with gel pens, you will need to have the caps off your gel pens, and a waterbrush or brush with water. Stamp your image, remember to use ink that won't interact with water. I don't know if all gel pens work, mine did, I just marked a little color, then brushed with the waterbrush, and repeated. I tested my pen on scrap paper first. I think the ink dries too fast to color a big area. Thanks for stopping by and any comments that you leave.