Vibrant Backgrounds with Color Burst

One of my FAVORITE things to do when creating Art is to use VIBRANT colors. I love when my art LOOKS happy!!

In the years of working in the Paper and Craft industry, I have found some paints that I LOVE. And one of those is Color Burst.

Ken Oliver is the creator of these AMAZING powdered watercolors and I can tell you, YOU DON’T NEED VERY MUCH to achieve the vibrancy.

My 2 favorite sets of Color Burst are the original Brights Set as well as the STUNNING color collection of the Earth Tones.

Of course, I have my favorites from each set… and today I am going to show you how to use YOUR Color Burst colors to add Vibrant Color to your art, card making, and more.

To achieve the BRIGHT watercolor look, I used the following colors:

Alizarin Crimson
Orange
Lemon Yellow
Terra Verte
Ultramarine Blue
Indigo
Violet

To make the Vibrant Background:

Start out by using Watercolor Paper. I personally recommend using Neenah Solar White Card stock
Squirt out just a tiny bit of each color out onto your water color paper. Now, I tend to be “heavy handed” when I use my Color Burst because I like LOTS of color. If you want, you can start with just tapping the container of Color Burst with your Pointer Finger while holding the container in your hand over your paper. You will see just a few particles come out. If you can see the particles, that is plenty.
Start with Red/Orange and move left to right adding a bit of each color so they are in Rainbow Order. Of course, you can do whatever color-combo you like. HOWEVER I highly encourage you work with one end of the rainbow or the other. Hot tones (yellow, orange, red) or cool tones (purple, blue, green, yellow) otherwise you will accidentally create gunky brown.

NOW get out a broad-tip paint-brush and apply some water to it from your paint cup. Dab out the paint brush on your paper towel and then gently start at the Left side of your paper and swipe vertically with the brush. You will get your vibrant color INSTANTLY. I tend to move from red into orange.
Once you have moved from your darker colors and you are headed to the yellow, CLEAN YOUR BRUSH in your paint water. THEN start directly on yellow and move up to the orange. CLEAN YOUR BRUSH AGAIN and then move from yellow down to your greens and blues.
Keep in mind, there is a LOT of color in the those containers of Color Burst!! So yo really don’t need to apply very much of the powder. You should absolutely clean your brush a few times during the watercolor process because otherwise your colors will bleed together and you won’t see the distinct colors
You can even see in my design below how the yellow hardly even shows… But it’s completely necessary in the Rainbow Palette because it crosses that bridge between orange and green. Honestly, I think Yellow is probably THE most important color of the Rainbow!!

What you end up with is this GORGEOUS Rainbow background!!!

The is a picture of the Water color as SOON as it was done (the ink was still wet!)

What I find really fascinating is I also took a picture days later, after it dried on its own and I LOVE the look of all the little particles through out it.

The best part, even after it dried, the colors remained VIBRANT!!

If you would like to order your own set of Color Burst, they can be ordered by calling me at 509-860-2919. Color Burst comes in Sets of 6 colors OR Monochrome Sets of 3 colors!

Thank you so much for your continued and wonderful support!!

Have a magical day!!

~Elli