Radiant Pearls - Tutorial

What are Radiant Pearls?

Radiant Pearls - A wet paint. Mostly very pearlescent or metallic. Radiant Pearls are transparent (like watercolors) pearlized paints, and emollients similar to oil paints. These properties allow for endless shading and blending techniques. Available in 80 brilliant colors, Paint, stipple, apply directly to the rubber stamps and even make background paper. Non-toxic acid free best of all tested safe to emboss for a pearlized enamel effect or air-dried to a soft satin luminescent sheen.

Click on the phrase "what are radiant pearls?" at the top of this post to link to a basic instructions on its use.

The following instruction relates to a particular card I made shown in my previous post:

Materials

Glossy card stock cut to fit your image
Watercolor brush Radiant Pearl in 5 different colors: Angel Face, Hibiscus, Lime Squeeze, Frosty Pine, and Tiger Eyes (choose your own colors but these were the colors I used)
Stipple Brush
Pink Marker for fine detailing
Stazon Black Ink
Embossing Powder: Stampin Up Iridescent Ice or any clear glitter embossing powder - any brand will do.
Embossing Tray or a piece of paper folded to catch the embossing powder
Heating Tool
PSX K-015 tamp or any large image stamp
Paper Towel to wipe your brushes - wipe in between colors

Instructions (Click on the image for a larger view)

Stamp the image on to glossy cardstock using the Stazon black ink pad.

Start with the base - Color the flowers with the watercolor brush using very little amount of the Angel Face Radiant Pearls. Spread the colors out using light strokes until it's distributed completely - meaning at the point when paint no longer can be spread out. Continue this process until all the flowers are colored in.

Shading - With the Hibiscus Radiant Pearls, color the inner aspects of the flowers using light strokes. Do not color the whole flower. Leave a little bit of the base color to show as highlights. The purpose of the darker color is to shadow or shade to give contrast to the image. With the pink marker, I colored the small buds sticking out of the flower. Click on the imagefor a larger image of the picture to see the shading.

Base color - Color all the leaves using the Lime Squeeze. Again, color in until the paint is distributed completely. Repeat the process until all the leaves are completely painted.

Shading - Paint Frosty Pine on to the crease of the leaves and under the leaves. Because the color is very dark, use very little of the paint. Dab the color on to the creases and lightly spread it out but not fully covering the leaf.



Finishing up - Paint Tiger Eye carefully on to the branches.



Apply Stampin' Up Iridescent Ice embossing powder and heat emboss the image.



Stipple - Pick up a little bit of the Angel Face and stipple randomly all over covering parts of the white areas. Wipe your brush with the paper towel then stipple in the same manner with the Lime Squeeze. If you stipple on the images, it's okay. . .it's embossed so it won't color over it but be sure to wipe it off before proceeding.



Emboss - Cover the whole image with the Iridescent Ice embossing powder and heat emboss.



This is the finished product.



Whew! Sorry it's such a long post. I should have done the instructions on a document and added it as a link. I'll keep that in mind for next time. Anyhow, the process with Radiant Pearls is the same as water coloring but the results are much stunning.

A few things to remember:

• Be sure to wipe your brush after starting on a new color. Don't clean with water or your brush will be wet and may thin out the Radiant Pearls when coloring. It's okay to use water with Radiant Pearls if you want your coloring to appear translucent or lighter.
• Radiant Pearls without embossing will not dry immediately especially on glossy card stock.
• If you are using matte cardstock, it'll take a few hours to dry so embossing will speed up the process but will give it an embossed look. Don't do it if you want it to only appear painted on and not embossed.
• Don't touch the colored areas when wet or it will smear.
• Remember to start off with a lighter base color then shade with a darker color. If the color is too dark, you can lighten it up with a neutral color.

Try it out and have fun coloring.