Hi friends! Thanks for stopping by today! Welcome to Yana Smakula‘s latest edition of “Yippee for Yana“! In this edition Yana is using some new Pretty Pink Posh stamps and combining them with a gorgeous galaxy technique. Please be sure to watch the video, and enjoy!

Hi everyone, this is Yana Smakula and I’m excited to bring you another episode from my by-monthly “Yippee For Yana” video series! In today’s video I’m showing you how to create a watercolor galaxy background. This project probably seems intimidating because right now you are thinking “there’s no way I can create that watercolor galaxy background”. Trust me, you can. You just have to give it a try and add some black and white at the end. This really is the main trick.

I started working on my project by stamping stars and a sub sentiment from the Seeing Stars stamp set in Versafine Onyx Black ink onto Arches Hot Press watercolor cardstock panel. This particular paper is smooth and perfect for stamping and watercoloring, it has almost no texture at all, so images stamp really nicely. The reason I went with Versafine Onyx Black ink for stamping is this ink is nice and rich and it is waterproof; it was vital to use a waterproof ink for my stamping. I also stamped my critters and I used a bit of masking.

Because I was creating a scene, I need to mask several images for best results. After my stamping was done I moved onto coloring. I taped my panel onto a board (I knew I would be adding quite a bit of water so I wanted the panel to warp as little as possible and I was able to minimize warping by taping my panel down). For my coloring I used Gansai Tambi watercolors and first colored my critters. Later, I used several colors or Copic markers to add details and shading to my images as I didn’t quite like the watercolored result. You can definitely combine different coloring mediums to add details and finishing touches.

Don’t feel like you can’t mix mediums, you most definitely can (and because VersaFine ink is also Copic friendly after it’s been heat set the ink didn’t bleed when it came in contact with markers) To color my background I first wet the paper using a flat waterbrush and next added initial color. I used a heat tool in between each layer of color and dried my paper. My background looked quite bad during the process but as soon as I added black and later white it magically transformed.

I made sure to kept the area around my critters and sentiment light (I added only light shades of blue and purple and just a bit of black) so that the main images still remained prominently visible on my project. I also die cut and stamped a wooden sign from the Camping Friends stamp set by Pretty Pink Posh onto same Arches Hot Press watercolor paper, added a missing you sentiment and watercolored the sign to match the rest of my scene.

I foam mounted my watercolor panel onto an A2 top folding card base – it was trimmed to 4 by 5 ½” and foam mounted stamped and die cut sign on top. I used black foam tape to make sure it wouldn’t be visible on the card. This project was inspired by a card I shared several months ago over on my blog I used the same Seeing Stars stamp set to stamp constellations on my background and went with the same watercolor galaxy technique. Have fun stamping!

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Thanks for reading today, and thanks to Yana for being our guest!

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