Watercoloring Snowdrops

 This week Brenda has chosen this video seen here on YouTube doing snowdrop flowers called easy watercolour snowdrops in the snow by Harriet de Winton. So it's been a while and I know a few years ago probably there was a snowdrop challenge that I did not try, it looked so intimidating to me. I seem to have a mental hang up on sketching the paintings as a start so, I grabbed a sheet of cold press arches, and made my self draw the flowers from what I remembered of the video.

Okay I thought you can do this.

Promptly painting a wash over the sketch and then remembered it needed masking fluid... so did a second sketch. 

"tilted" my masking fluid, it was a  glumpy mess. and I could see it was not smooth to the lines but, decided to let it dry and see what happened. 

This was the first sketch when it dried I decided to try some white bleed proof white over the dried places to see what it would dry like. (sometimes that dries grey instead of white) 

So meanwhile added some wash over the glumpy dried fluid. 

another round of paints. 

Took off the masking fluid and decided to try adding the paint details to the blooms, they were pretty ragged looking so. 

Out came another sheet for third times a charm painting, 

Same masking fluid, I shook that bottle until it looked like fluid in it, it did work but, if yours is a glumpy mess tilting it is not going to cut it. 

I should start by saying I used some of the same colors she mentions and others I just used what was near me, I do not have the same colors and I have never seen these blooms in real life so, I was not really all that sure what colors the caps near the petals should be or the veins on the petals.

I decided to add some bleed proof white to the "snow" 

After this round of paint I left it to dry for a couple of days, its been stormy here while this was being painted and Its hard to judge just how "dry" a wash is to me when my hands are cold. 

I cut the painting (twice) with a spellbinders postage edge square dies and then taped them back together on the back side. The sheer is some really old from Stampin' Up called going grey, the base is unknown and its 6" square in real life. There is no greeting because, I do not know what I want to do with this one as of yet. That's about it from me, If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.

Another flowering Boot

 So, I had it really bugged me the boot I tried last weekend and I had more time to play today and thought try it again while the ( next week's sample) is drying.

So this time around I grabbed an old Sizzix originals boot die and cut one out and then used the drop piece as a stencil to trace a boot shape on some cold press watercolor paper like so.

 I also never seem to be able to mix "pretty" pastel colors with my Daniel smith paints so, I dug out these Prima ones I have that almost seem like Gouache. ( they are not so translucent as DS paints) but, are in pretty colors.

Added more paints and blooms and such each time it dried.

Well, I thought the boot was dry. So I stamped an old DOTS / CTMH sentiment on this with some rainforest ink and it bled on the boot. So, I had at that time white Dr. PH. Martins bleed proof white wet on the blooms and leaves so, its just sitting like this, not sure it will go any farther. If you'd like to play along you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.

Inspired By {Bas Bleu books}

 This week Amy has chosen the Bas Bleu store for inspiration and I came across this pin of these text filled cats. I thought that was interesting and wondered if I had enough open space in any of my cat stamps to pull it off. 

So I decided on this old Stamps Happen Gift Box Cat to give it a try, I stamped it with some pinecone ink on a scrap of A Muse Studios printed night before Christmas text paper and some Cotton Arches cold press watercolor paper and proceeded to add watercolor paints to both.

A closer look at the cat after more paint had been added, I did also after this was mostly dry add some clear Nuvo crystal glue on the eye balls. 

I am not sure what I want it to say yet so, there is no stamped greeting on it, The HO HO HO printed paper is from the Scrapbook.com Gingerbread pad. The base is some textured bazzill and this one finished out at 6" square in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring a bloom filled boot

 This week Angie is sharing this video seen here on YouTube by Julia Lis Art that has you sketching your boot and filling it with blooms ala spring colors. 

I did grab my travel pad and kept it small using a water soluble pencil. I did not add the buckle. 

First layers of green paint wet,

When that was dry started adding some blooms and tried to do some shading to the bottom of the boot.

Which looked really obvious to me so I added even more color to the boot and then gave it a shadow wash underneath. I do like how those loose water dot flowers turned out. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

A catch up Post

 I am getting really bad about not either blogging things that were made for not team challenge samples or just random things. So here is some more eye candy for your Sunday. I did do an order from Red Lead Paperworks stamps not too long ago and I was totally tickled to see how they packaged everything. 

Everything was tied off with the ribbons and that box, its hand stamped. very cool 

The inside of that box contained the wood mounted stamps I had picked up from them. 

Sometime after that arrived, I had seen that Polly was asking for humor cards for a Ways to use it Challenge And I had received a few silly Diamonds sentiments that leaned towards the snarky side of get well in the mail that week so, The sponge one was one of those and when I opened the drawer with people in it to get the operating room ( also from Diamonds) I seen this old Art Impressions Nurse right next to them so, out she came and The sentiment on her card is from Riley & Co.

I snagged a piece of this white crepe paper ( hobby lobby) to use thinking of curtains but, wanted to keep these simple so, I just stamped them with Versafine on some Neenah cream and die cut those panels with the Impression Obsession Crazy stitched set rectangle (it's one of Anna Wights) used some grey scraps for contrast and called it good enough. 

Today there is a featured stamper challenge going on at SCS and Shelly's gallery was chosen. Right off the bat this pretty blue card caught my eye. I felt really at home with the design, and knew I could use it as a Sketch type inspiration. and then a little farther down the first page I seen this Santa card and thought ah ha. So, I kept the colors and the Christmas theme of the Santa card and tweaked the layout of the Blue card to do this one. 

A look at the layers and depth. The bears eyes were done with black liquid pearls. ( that's not the right name will grab the bottle but, its a ranger thing that dries very glossy and 3-d)

The base here is a premade A2 one and the Sentiment is from Impression Obsession also one of Jeanne's sets called Christmas coffee sayings. Its stamped on another of Anna's IO dies ( the original sized pinked stitched banners) and that is tied onto the sheer ribbon with some natural hemp string. The cocoa bear is on a Die cut from the Penny Black Posted die ( I like the simplicity of this one, most of my postage dies are more detailed and have lots of stitching or piercing and such) I did add a transparent heart button to his scarf and some pop dots under his arms to hold the cocoa. ( really I know people who have some coffee with their cream ;) so, the coffee sentiment still works here) Added some white dots over where I had thought to add pink to his cheeks. I thought he turned out pretty cute. I have been pushing around a small pile of cocoa bear pieces for a couple of weeks now trying to decide if I liked the browns together. Which made me end up inking most the edges with some DOX vintage photo ( of course right) just to tie them together a little better. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {All Paint by Numbers }

 This week Denise has shared a Paint by Numbers site for adults and I had found this silly frog with Nerdy glasses almost instantly. and I hemmed and hawed about did I want to paint a frog because, I knew I had dies to make the glasses and or make them pop over a painting. And then I happened to click on the thread she wrote ( found here) And I seen that Image #19 in the challenge thread was this snowman done in red's and whites. 

So,I pulled out this Tim Holtz Cool Yule Sizzix dies set knowing there were glasses in it. and Decided to go with the snowman here and mixed and matched things from that set to build him.

I did grab a brown fineliner pen to do the detailing on the scarf & nose. The nose was cut from a scrap I had scribbled orange pen on and the Snowman Hugs sentiment is from Inky Antics. The panel was cut with a Penny Black Posted die and I did use some vintage photo ink along the edges of the white parts in the hat to let it have more depth with the mostly white scene. Just a simple one for next year's stash. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring a Island Reflection

 This week it's my turn to host the water coloring challenge and I have chosen this one from Julia Lis Art found here on YouTube. 

I tend to keep cut pieces of watercolor paper in a drawer on the table and I picked up this one and I figured out fairly quickly it was a piece of not so great paper. There were challenges a few weeks back that encouraged using up some of the not so great papers in the stash and evidently this was a piece of that. 

this was what it looked like wet. 

Its probably easier to see it dry. So, that being said I instantly started another panel with Arches cold press 100% cotton paper.

started with some very watered down shadow green.

After the first layer dried I did start adding trees and the island. 

I did try to keep the reflected trees not as vibrant or crisp thinking that the reflections I have seen in real life were actually more loose than this but, this is what I remembered seeing in the video. I also left off a lot of the birds. I love seeing birds in scenes but, I thought there was just too many for my tastes.

So, it finished like this and then I did turn it into a birthday card for Hubs who will have one soon. 

I did cut the panel with the largest die in the Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle die and then wrapped some natural hemp string around the bottom to tie on the Sentiment strip. That sentiment is from the Altenew Birthday greetings set stamped with some Versafine ink on Neenah solar white. The base is some very pale green textured Bazzill and this one is A6 in real life. If you'd care to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.

A few Hearts

 

I had some happy mail from Honey bee stamps yesterday and I started cutting some of them these are from the lace hearts layering frames and mini post card dies. from Neenah classic cream and that collage layer is from the BoBunny Ecetera pad. that lace is vintage but, this shot was done to show the addition of the red Christmas stickles glitter glue on the postage stamp space and the bases of the flowers on the top heart. 

I did use a tiny paint brush and some Windsor & newton red watercolor in the crevices of these layers along with lots of Distress Oxide vintage photo ink. The base is A6 in real life and the inside also was inked with the vintage photo. The special delivery is also from Honey Bee stamps Post Marked set.

Over the years I have bought so many postage themed stamps ( I still buy them) it seems the trend is swinging around again at the moment and every where you look you can find new postage things. So, taking advantage of that, this the green collage print and the eyelet lace heart were also cut from the same old Bo Bunny pad and then the heart has stamping over it from I will list them its a lot of sets. And then I used the largest primitive heart die from Anna Wight at Impression Obsession with just plain kraft cardstock and inked and stamped that. before it was stamped I used the smaller heart from that same set to cut out the center of the heart so that the printed paper and stamping of the bottom eyelet layer could peek through and then had a place to tuck in the Club scrap sentiment. The heart layers are up on foam pop dots for some dimension.Stamps on this one are from Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Field notes, mail art, Eccentric, Unity Stamps Christmas Express, Spellbinders Cathe Holden sign here, Club Scrap You've got mail, That floral ribbon is vintage. There is a clean and simple valentine with unusual colors challenge at SCS this week but, I think this will be a thank you note for happy mail. That's about it from me, Happy Thursday and thanks for stopping by.

Painting a Winter Scene

 This week Kia has shared this video seen here on YouTube from Ellen Crimi-Trent called Easy winter watercolor tutorial. 

So, it starts with a wash of blues and greys with some white gouache splatter to be falling snow. that you let dry.

I was thinking colors are not quite deep enough so, I totally put on a second layer of water, wash and splatters over the top of this then walked away. It's really cold here compared to last week so, it took a very long time to get "mostly' dry, not really dry.

I was using windsor & newton white gouache here and I was having a hard time getting gradients of it so, I did go to deal with dinner and such at this point and I never made it back up the stairs last night. I am debating about if I want to switch some of the snow to be Bleed Proof white and or I do have white shimmer watercolors also. So, these are things I am thinking about. part of my brain says if the wind is whipping those branches to the side like this the snow should be more flurried to the right also, So I have lots of snow to add I think before this will become something. 

added some more "snow" and the opal blue (white) has blue catch lights you can kind of see it with the paper on an angle like this.

A little more snow as added after work today.

What the painting looked like after I stopped adding snow to it. 

Dug out two of these Tim Holtz chipboard window frames and used glue dots to put it over the painting, the large "snow" made me think bokeh effect and so to me that meant seeing the scene through glass. So I decided after the frames were glued down to add a few sparkled Stardust glitter glue in a few spots. The Happy Winter is an Savvy Stamps and its on an Spellbinders justrite tag die tied to the window frame with some May Arts iridescent cord. The finished size of this is A6 on some textured cordinations cardstock. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS.