Yippee for Yana: Watercolor Galaxy

Yippee for Yana Watercolor Galaxy

Yippee for Yana Cardmaking Feature

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!

Yippee for Yana Watercolor Galaxy

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!

WATCH THE VIDEO:


Yippee for Yana Watercolor Galaxy

SUPPLIES:

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


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  1. Yippee! Yana, this is fabulous! And you DO make it seem do-able. I’m totally going to try this technique really soon. Thanks for the video!

  2. I watch you on YouTube and everything you do is easy to follow. You give great instructions and are so much fun to watch.

  3. I love you card Yana, the night sky really looks fantastic! Thank you for such a great video tutorial as well, it was very helpful to see how you did the sky.

  4. Oh Yana I enjoy looking your video
    cool I will give it a try cause I have Ganzai Tambi too and this technique is cool Love the black there
    and your card so sweeeet
    complete with mushroom and the cute Missing you sentiment there..
    sweet card Yana
    I LOVE!

  5. I really like the galaxy background and the stamped stars…the critters are cute too! Everything came together so well.

  6. That sky is amazing. I would have been afraid to put black on it, but that’s what makes it so cool.

  7. Your card and background are amazing, Yana! Thank you for sharing your technique – I never would have thought to add yellow for the night sky, but it’s perfect. Thank you for the inspiration!

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