Stenciled Antique Bottles with Collaged Watercolor Bouquets

Hello everyone! My name is Carolyn Pertuit and I'm delighted to be a guest designer on StencilGirl Talk sharing one of my favorite ways to use stencils with my watercolor art. I've created collaged watercolor florals in stenciled antique bottles. I was inspired by photos of vintage bottles I found on Pinterest. My love of painting flowers, collaging, and stenciling was a perfect combination for my latest art creations.

This bottle was inspired by a beach bottle made to look like "tumbled and weathered sea glass".

Supplies:

•Favorite StencilGirl Stencils - the stencils I used are listed with each photo

•Drawing paper

•Watercolor paint

•140 lb. cold pressed watercolor paper 

•Watercolor brushes

•Container of water

•Pigment ink pad

•Foam blending tool 

•Light modeling paste 

•Palette knife 

•Scissors 

•Glue dots

•Painters tape

Instructions:

1. Fold a piece of drawing paper in half and draw one side of a bottle on the fold. Cut out while still folded. Trace bottle onto watercolor paper and paint with your favorite watercolors. I used Winsor and Newton cobalt turquoise light and green gold.

2. I stenciled over the bottle using Gwen Lafleur's Ornamental Floral Screen stencil with a Brilliance white ink pad and a foam blending tool. This created a bottle that appears "frosted by the sea and sand."

3. Next, using Carolyn Dube's Picasso's Words stencil I taped around the words "INSPIRATION EXISTS” then placed the stencil down the middle of the bottle and applied light modeling paste. The photo on the right shows how it looked after it dried.

4. My collage elements are larger flowers and some of the leaves. Photo on left shows my cutout Ice Plant flowers and a few of the leaves. Photo on the right shows the other elements I paint directly onto the watercolor paper, smaller and thinner plants. I painted sea oats and a miscellaneous filler plant...could be a pesky weed! I glue all my collage pieces with Glue Dots because the pieces are easy to pull off and place somewhere else.

The following photos are more examples of my floral bouquets in stenciled vintage bottles:

This was my Christmas bottle bouquet using Cecilia Swatton's Swatton Borders #1 with interference red acrylic paint.

This antique bottle was inspired by a cobalt blue glass cathedral ink bottle. I used modeling paste with Michelle Ward's Circle 6 stencil and Pam Carriker's Bird in Window stencil for the edges of the bottle.

I used the cathedral ink bottle template for this bouquet with Pam Carriker's Bird in Window stencil and modeling paste.

This bottle was inspired by an antique soda siphon. The stencil used was Mary Beth Shaw's Leaf Diamond with modeling paste.

As you can see I've created quite a series of bouquets in a bottle. I'm so happy I started using stencils on the bottles. I love the dimension of the modeling paste and the uniqueness of each bottle created by using stencils.

You can see more of my artwork on Instagram @paperpensandpaint.