First try with watercolor brush pens

Hi everyone! I have a fun card to share. Some of you who follow me on Instagram have seen me post about my copic coloring journey. Well today I did something new! I tried my hand at water color brush pens. I saw an ad on IG from Arteza and found their prices to be really competitive compared to the Zig Clean brush pens that I have been eying for a few years. I bought the Arteza 48 Real Brush pen pack from Amazon and got a great deal! Once again an impulse buy that I don't regret! (the first being the Crafter's Companion edge dies from HSN!)

I used the lovely dahlia images from the Dahlia Blossoms stamp set from Altenew (all Altenew is on sale at the Stamp Simply store now!). I am relatively new to Altenew, but have been seeing their beautiful designs all over the internet. These dahlias are so lovely!!! For my first try at these pens, I used one color, but with the leaves I did branch out and use 2 -lol!

I watched a few how-to videos about these brush pens on YouTube and will say, these talented artists make it look so easy! It ended up taking me 45 minutes to color these 2 flowers, but I think with some more practice I will get much faster. I really do like working with these. They are much different than Copics, but in lots of ways they are more forgiving.

I have 2 tips for anyone looking to try these:
1 -I found it easier, and had less bleeding over the stamped line, if I heat embossed the image
2 -Quality of watercolor paper is key! Sadly the FSJ watercolor paper I had in my stash did not work with these pens. I went to my local Dick Blicks store and picked up a Canson XL watercolor paper (140lb, 300f) and they worked like a charm!
Anyway, expect to see me use these often!

Here's how the pens look when swatched on watercolor paper. I posted this for the 30 day coloring challenge -hence the label. There are some really pretty colors!!

Today is the last day of the 30 day marker coloring challenge, so I have a WHOLE BUNCH of flower images in a pile just waiting to get made into cards. I plan on using simple layouts and focusing on birthday cards because I never seem to have enough in my stash!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Other supplies used:

My Mind's Eye woodgrain paper from the Gingham Farm 6x6 pad

Kaisercraft rhinestones in silver

May Arts satin edge grosgrain ribbon in black

Spellbinders Classic Circles LG, Scalloped Circles LG and Celebrations Two