Winter Orchid

I bought a set of Derwent Inktense pencils awhile back and I've really enjoyed playing with them.  They work like watercolor pencils, but the colors are so much more vibrant, and I find that they're perfect for coloring flowers.  Tracey Berkey (Starving Artistamps) suggested that I try them on one of her orchid images, and here is the result.  I must say that I'm pretty pleased with the painterly look of this one.

I stamped the image on watercolor paper with grey ink so that the linework wouldn't be so prominent.  I used Ancient Page ink, but any permanent, water-resistant ink would work.  And then I painted.  I don't know much about watercolor technique, but the more I play with these pencils, the more I think I want to learn how to watercolor.  This is FUN!  Tracey's got some really great floral images in her line so I'll definitely be trying this with some of the others.  I'm thinking that a grouping of these in frames would look awesome in my dining room.

This one I made into a card, though.  Starving Artistamps is the sponsor for 2 Sketches 4 You this week, so naturally I used Kazan's sketch for my layout.  The design on the pink background paper is stamped in Versamark ink using a background stamp from Starving Artistamps called Fern Leaf Tooled Leather.

Have a great day!