"SMOOSHED" Archival Ink Coloring

This summer I've been using my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink shades a lot to make randomly "smooshed" backgrounds, then add flowers and other doodles on top. I also like starting with a stamped or doodled image and painting them with Archival Inks using a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol. But today I experimented with a new way of coloring with Archivals, that sort of splits the difference between the two.

I started with this pretty hydrangea image, stamped and embossed in black. I chose the main color for the hydrangea, smooshed that shade onto the craft sheet attached to my Stay-tion, spritzed it with rubbing alcohol in a Ranger Mister, and dipped the hydrangea area of the tag into the wet ink, moving it about a bit to soak up as much ink as possible. It's difficult to target ONLY the flowers, but that's ok, it adds interest to the tag to have little hits of color elsewhere. Then I smooshed a secondary color onto the mat and picked it up with the background area of the tag, taking care to choose something blend-friendly; for example on the tag with Cornflower hydrangeas I used Prickly Pear; for the Rosey Posey flowers I have a Tea Rose background; the Orange Blossom flowers are surrounded by Peachy Keen, etc. Then I used a waterbrush full of Isopropyl to paint the leaves in a coordinating shade of green, touching up the stems or any areas that had absorbed a lot of ink with a green colored pencil if needed. Finally I added tiny dots of Wendy's signature shades of Liquid Pearls, stamped a sentiment and tied a bow at the top. 

I really like they way this method splits the difference between Archival painting and randomly smooshed backgrounds, so you'll definitely be seeing it again!