GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Emily Midgett

Hi there! Emily Midgett from Sixth Street Sundries here with you today, and I’m thrilled to be back again as a guest for the Wplus9 blog.

Watercolor has been an obsession of mine for the last several years, and after learning the basics, I began to experiment with different ways to add depth and an element of realism to my projects. The florals from Wplus9 are gorgeous, realistic botanical drawings, so I always enjoy playing with new techniques with them!

Today, my goal was to add some more variation to the colors of my flowers by taking advantage of the transparency of the watercolor medium and adding multiple layers of color to achieve lots of depth and dimension. Here’s a video showing the technique:

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

In case you can’t watch the video, here’s a basic rundown of the technique:

I began by saturating my watercolor paper with clean water until it was shiny, then dropping a few different shades of watercolors (Daniel Smith Quinacridone Lilac, Naphthamide Maroon, Quinacridone Purple, and Indanthrone Blue) onto this very wet panel and muddling them with my wet paintbrush until I had achieved a mottled, ethereal background. (I like to choose colors that blend nicely together to avoid a muddy mess!) After allowing this panel to dry completely, I heat embossed the floral swag from Wplus9’s Kind Soul onto the background using silver embossing powder.

I then used the same 4 shades of watercolor to add details and depth to the floral images, focusing one color on each type of flower or foliage. The transparency of the watercolors allows that first layer to shine through, and adding the stamped image over the top of this background wash helps to take the guesswork out of where to add different variations of color on each individual flower! I added a sentiment from the recently released So Very stamp and die set.

You might be wondering... what is the point of adding that first layer of watercolor? Well, I have always struggled with adding color variation to my florals. I tend to stick with the same color/s on each petal of the flower, which can result in my flowers looking a little flat, in my opinion. But, in reality, there are many different colors on something that might, at first glance, appear “pink.” My goal in adding these extra colors on the first layer was to provide some additional undertones to create variation and interest on each flower.

In my experimenting for today’s post, I also created this project using Wplus9’s Christmas Rose using the same technique. I chose reds, pinks, and purples, which all blend nicely together, to create this project, adding in a sentiment from the new Sending Cheer die.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you found this post interesting, and maybe will try to add some watercolored layers of your own! Thank you so much to Dawn for having me back as a guest! ~Emily

For more of Emily's work, be sure to check out her blog.

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured Wplus9 supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase.

Christmas Rose Bouquet Shop at: WP9	Kind Soul Stamp Set Shop at: WP9	So Very Shop at: WP9	So Very Die Shop at: WP9