Shimmering Princess by Kasia Leach

Hey guys.. I'm Kasia and this is my first blog post as a Colour Blast Design Team Member. I thought I would introduce myself quickly before I hop into my project. 

I live with my hubby and two crazy-fun kiddos in Adelaide. Being creative has been a huge part of my life since I could hold a pencil. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia, Photography & Graphic Design and have been a memory keeper in one form or another throughout my life. I love the feel of paper in my hands, copies, stamps, paint and getting messy in general. 

I worked at my local scrapbook store and taught all the messy & colourful classes for the best part of 2 years and have been on the Creative Kit Club Design Team since September 2015. 

I now work full-time for Uniquely Creative as a Graphic Designer & Kit Club Coordinator and absolutely love being able to design the products I can later create with. 

I have hugely missed teaching and getting messy, so I am beyond excited to be joining the Colour Blast Design Team and hope to inspire you throughout the year. 

So enough about me and onto my project..

Shimmering Princess 

When my Colour Shimmer Cubes arrived the other week I could not wait to start playing. Just like any other new watercolour medium I had to experiment with them to see just what I could achieve and how they reacted in different situations.  So this post will be all about my discoveries and I will share a number of tips with you how to take control of these babies and create magic results.

I store my Colour Shimmer Cubes with the lids off in a little drawer unit from K-Mart. I pull the drawers out to use them and once they are completely hard again pop them back in the unit, this way they don't go off. There is a gap in the unit so that there is still airflow even after the drawers are in. 

I created a palette with all the colours I had so I could work from this for most of my project and only used the cubes for really concentrated colour. 

I stamped out my Prima Princess image onto watercolour cardstock with waterproof ink and started slowly laying down colour. 

By slowly, I mean the colour was very diluted. To achieve this I used a size 12 round brush filled with water and only slightly dipped the tip into my palette of Colour Shimmer Cubes. 

When you do this you pick up only a little bit of colour and not much of the shimmer, as the shimmer drops to the bottom of your mixture. To pick up the shimmer, you just need to dip your brush right in and touch the bottom. 

Controlling the amount of shimmer you achieve is very important as this means you can use the Colour Shimmer Cubes not only to achieve an amazing shimmering result, but also as a matt finish for areas like skin, where you don't want such an intense amount of shimmer. 

Using a very diluted amount of the Colour Shimmer Cubes you can also achieve lovely skin tones. For the skin I mainly used the Leather Colour Shimmer Cube and added a tiny amount of Blush Colour Shimmer Cube to the mix. 

For the hair I used a mix of Leather, Sienna and Dusty Charcoal Colour Shimmer Cubes. Again I built up the layers of colour very slowly. If you by chance make the colour too dark, you can always paint on a little clean water onto the area which you want to lighten and dab off with a dry tissue. It's a good idea to always have tissues or a paper towel at hand when painting with watercolours. 

I then focussed on the flowers. Again.. slowly build up the layers of colour. I literally used every single colour of Colour Shimmer Cube I had (all but Bling and Snow White... my next purchase for sure!). It's a good idea to do a swatch of your colours so you know how they look on paper rather than in the cube. 

I started each section of each flower with a light layer then painted on slightly more concentrated amount of colour where the shadows would be. This image was lovely to work with as there were already a lot of artist drawn shadow indicators. So if you are just starting, pick some images that have these indicators already there so you can just play and not have to think where the shadows would be yourself. 

Just remember to only work next to areas that are dry or your colour will bleed into the wet section.

You can see in this image just how much the Colour Shimmer Cubes can shimmer and just how matt of a result you can achieve.

After I finished colouring the main images I started working on the background. Again.. layers, layers and layers of colour. 

I like to work wet on wet when I am wanting to create a loose flowing background. By wet on wet I mean I lay down clean water onto the area I want to add colour to and then drop in the colour into those areas. Let the area completely dry and then repeat the process again and again. 

  

For the background I used mainly Envy, Deep Water, Singing the Blues and Just Blue Colour Shimmer Cubes, then added just a little Apple of My Eye, Lovely Lilac and Royalty Colour Shimmer Cubes. Just remember to let each layer dry well before adding another layer. This will let you achieve a lot more depth and get those lovely watercolour lines. 

When all your layers are dry add a generous amount of splatters making sure you cover the main image to protect it. 

Well.. that's all from me today. I hope you enjoyed my first project, maybe learned something and are inspired to get your Colour Shimmer Cubes out for a play. 

xx Kasia