Spritzed Silhouette

For today's featured stamper challenge on SCS, I used some new stamps from the large floral silhouette image collection at Starving Artistamps. My card was inspired by Paris Otremba's card here. I kept a floral image with a trio of flowers for the focal point, but changed the colors and the orientation of the layout in my version.

Initially, I planned to use my watercolor crayons to color directly on the image, as watercolor crayons were used on the original card. But, I ended up going a slightly different route here. Instead, I colored directly on the rubber with some Copic markers--yes, Copic markers. Gina K shared this method on her blog and I thought these images would be perfect for this technique. So, I colored directly on the stamp with my Copic markers, using multiple shades of the same color for a little depth in the image. Then I spritzed the stamp with some rubbing alcohol and stamped away.

The stamped image dried almost instantly on the paper and didn't warp it, unlike when I color the stamp with waterbased markers or watercolor crayons and spritz with water and need to wait for the image to dry and to handle it very carefully while it does to avoid mixing some of the puddles of color. The colors are also very vibrant using this technique and the image stays a little more distinct than it does with other "color and spritz" techniques. This small photo shows an image I stamped using watercolor crayons sprayed with some water. You can definitely see the difference between the two images. It's not that one way is better than the other, it's just that they achieve different results. It's always nice to have the option to do something just a little differently if you want to.

I used a background image, also from Starving Artistamps, here, stamped tone on tone on the cardfront and added a sentiment in ink that matches one of the mats on the cardfront. Most of the cards I've done with the floral silhouette images have been in earth tones, so this soft color palette with some bold accents was a switch for me. You can find more samples using these beautiful floral silhouette images and lots of others on the new Starving Artistamps Gallery here. And, don't forget the special discount offer from Starving Artistamps for Inking Aloud readers here.

Materials Used:

large floral silhouette stamp (FS-10), sentiment (46.04), background (25.02) (Starving Artistamps); Almost Amethyst and Elegant Eggplant Classic inks, Almost Amethyst, Elegant Eggplant, Always Artichoke, and Confetti White cardstock, Elegant Eggplant grosgrain ribbon, silver brads, slit punch (Stampin' Up!); markers (Copic Ciao); rubbing alcohol