Welcome to another Donna Downey Studios Artist Gang Tuesday! For this month’s project I decided to create an inspirational piece of artwork that I could frame.  Now instead of working on a canvas, because I knew I wanted to work with my water colors,  I decided to work on some 140 lb Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper which I cut to 9″ x 12″.

The watercolors I chose to use are the Twinkling H20’s.  I’ve owned the entire original collection for about 6 years now but really only started using them a few months ago.  I honestly can’t believe I waited this long because they are absolutely gorgeous!  They are very richly pigmented, and the addition of the fine, high quality mica gives them a subtle, yet stunning shimmer when dry.

Now if you don’t own Twinkling H20’s you could certainly use any type of watercolor. And if bold and vibrant isn’t your thing, then by all means choose a softer palette of colors.

This piece came together so easily using Donna’s She Is 8 x 8 stencil for the greeting. To give it texture I applied black embossing paste and then heat embossed it with back ultra-high embossing powder. If you don’t have black embossing paste you could easily create your own using a light modeling paste mixed with some Carbon Black Fluid Acrylic.

The final step to this piece was the addition of some subtle stamping – to give more visual texture.

You can watch the video below and see a full list of supplies on Donna’s Blog.

Here is a view of the entire piece which I’ll be framing with a black frame.