Polychromatic

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another day of creating cards! The next class I took in the Altenew Educator Program was called Polychromatic. There were so many wonderful tips in this class on adding color or leaving it simple by creating a monochromatic card. The three points from the different lessons I will be using in the card today include: watercoloring on vellum with similar colors, creating a background using color, and using a bold pop of color.

I had recently purchased the Altenew Enjoy Your Journey stamp and die set and wanted to use it for this project. When I saw the bridge from this set, I was in awe of it. As I’ve mentioned before, creating masculine cards is a bit tricky for me since I prefer creating with flowers and pinks. I love it when I am challenged and I stumble upon a beautiful set like this one.

I prepared a 4 1/4″ by 5 1/2″ card base. I cut a 4″ by 5 1/4″ panel from cream cardstock. Then, I cut a smaller piece of vellum to use as my focal point. I stamped the bridge scene onto the vellum using Versamark Ink. Then, I poured jet black embossing powder over it and heat set it. This is a gorgeous black embossing powder that leaves shine, almost like a gel pen shine once it is heat set. I cut around the embossed image. Next, I traced around the vellum image to get a visual for watercoloring the panel of the card, which was cut to 3 3/4″ by 4 3/4″.

For the watercoloring on the base panel, I used Altenew Tanzanite, Cloudy Night, Permanent Black, and Rhodalite inks along with my Altenew watercolor brush. I started first by watercoloring the base of the bridge. Next, I moved onto watercoloring where the gray would pop around the bridge and mountains. I finished the panel by adding in tanzanite for the sky. I wanted it to look almost stormy, so I went with the deeper blue. I allowed this watercolor panel to dry mostly naturally.

Next, I turned the embossed vellum over to the back and began watercoloring the image. I used the gray cloudy night and the black inks for the mountains and more black on the train. Then, I used Altenew Raw Amber ink for the tiny windows to give the glow of light. On the middle portion between the bridge columns, I painted the background sky. for the bridge, I used Altenew Rhodalite ink and went over it several times to make it more maroon than pinkish. I added Altenew Red Jasper on the details and bricks of the bridge. I allowed the vellum to dry naturally.

Before gluing down vellum, I used my heat tool to make sure it was completely dry. After that, I used a clear, double-sided tape on some of the darker portions of the vellum. Since the bridge did not go all the way down to the bottom on some parts, I took a black gel pen and traced the straight lines. I added the same brick details to the drawn part to make it cohesive.

You’ll notice in the photos everything is a blue-gray. I kept it this way intentionally so that the bridge would really pop out. I added a few iridescent gems around the top portion of the scene. I used a small gray sentiment strip from the Altenew Penned Rose stamp set and stamped it using Altenew Cloudy Night ink to create a monochromatic look. I popped the sentiment up using foam dimensional tape and put it down at the bottom so it could blend in with the scene.

Let me know what you think in the comments! Thanks again for stopping by!