any help to erase a watercolour word?? :-)

[claire lander]

Dear All

I am sure that erasing info is here somewhere - but am failing to find under 'mistakes'...

I have an envelope, which while not vastly important in the grand scheme of things, I have spent rather a lot of time on over the last week. and on which I have written a whole word 'house' in watercolour - dilute (sadly not nearly invisible) gansei tambei, which I now wish I had put elsewhere on the envelope. It is all I can see when I look at it.

The situation arose when I made a snap decision having run out of room on my line. Bad idea, lesson learned, no snap decisions again any time soon.

What I would like in place of the word is pure white space ;-) ha ha, bit of a tall order, I can't even hide it under another word! To complicate things it isn't even pure white, so I can't use white out, it is a cream envelope. Would it be possible to alter the colour of eg bpw to match I wonder?

Thanks and I appreciate any help/references to helpful threads that come my way...

Best, Claire

[claire lander]

please excuse spelling of kuretake paints - put in as a space filler, intending to double check, then forgot, then ran out of time to check! :-) (baby calling...)...

[jeanwilson]

learn to embrace the *problem*
repeat the thing you want to obscure - in two more places
and then do some kind of layer - or many layers
when resolving problems, you learn a lot
if you really need to go back to white paper - get a new piece of paper
starting over is fun - you have opportunity to make other adjustments.

the time spent wishing you had that pure untouched paper back
is usually not time well spent - probably never well spent

i am sure there are other artists who will chime in here
and discuss the happy accidents that were embraced that opened the door to something wonderful.
a lot of us can point to really good stuff that happened in our work and recall that what is hiding under that wonderful spot
is a mistake that inspired us to do something very creative.

[claire lander]

Thank you Jean, great advice... :-) x

[Elizgadus59]

Not having seen the work, as one who works a lot with watercolor, try wetting a cotton ball and dab the area repeatedly and you may be able to lighten it up. Not sure how to get it to white. Watercolor typically stains. I hope it helps a little for your next boo boo. Eliz.

[melanie jane]

Those 'magic eraser' sponges that you can get work well on removing watercolour.  You can get them cheaply of amazon or ebay, and they're just as good as some of the ones you get in the shops.  My mum uses them for correcting mistakes on her watercolour paintings all the time.

[claire lander]

Ah thanks so much for your tips @melanie jane and @Elizgadus59, I appreciate you taking the time to comment ladies, I'll try both those things next time... :-) xx