Hi friends! And, um, happy new year? January just flew right by without me even noticing that I hadn’t shared any cards with you all month! Let’s correct that right now!

I made this card for the current challenge over at Lawn Fawnatics, where the theme is “lots of love”. I’ve been dying to use the You Are Sublime stamp set for a long time and I think it’s kinda perfect for this theme, don’t you?

I really wanted to play up the depth so I made a tall card. I trimmed a piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper to 3.5″ by 8″ and taped it down to a board with painters tape. I stamped my images using VersaFine in onyx black, starting with the diver because it anchored the scene.

I used mostly Gansai Tambi watercolors, with a few colors from the AlteNew watercolor palette, to paint the scene. I created a gradient for the water, using a deeper blue with a more saturated brush for the lower portion and gradually diluting with water as I went up. I dropped in some other shades of blue and aqua for interest. Then I painted in the smaller details of the scene once the ocean was dry. I went back over the deeper bits, as the blue dried back a bit lighter.

Once the paint was dry, I stamped my sentiment with Versamark and heat embossed it with Brutus Monroe powder in Alabaster. I removed the tape and trimmed the watercolor panel slightly to remove the white edges. Then I trimmed a piece of white card stock to just slightly taller and wider (when folded) than the panel. I scored it in half lengthwise and used craft foam to mount the panel onto the card base.

Now to find an envelope for this beast!