Watercoloring a River Scene

 This week Kia has chosen this on watercoloring silver birch trees video from Karen Rice seen here on YouTube. 

So I cut a piece of Arches cold press to A7 and sketched a cluster of tree trunks with a bird house.

I did use a water soluble pencil for the sketch.

I ended up using the three colors she mentions in her video except they are all Daniel Smith paints. 

more paints added. when this dried I did decide to add more snow flurries and another branch off the tree in the front to "hang" the bird house from.

The sentiment here is a reverse print one from Simon Says Stamp. The base is a pre made A7 card from Strathmore watercolor paper and the inside is lined with some Neenah solar white. It's very over cast here so getting a "white" card as what it really looks like seems to be beyond me today. its not so warm in person. If you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. I hope you are doing well & Thanks for stopping by.

Dirty Dozen January 2024 Christmas

 Every Year the dirty dozen at Splitcoaststampers has a theme for the prompt of making a Christmas card each month all year long to have a little stash by the time you need to mail them in December. That being said I was invited to play along with the team again this year and so for January's prompt I chose this tiny little Rubber Stampede Piglet stamp that I had not inked before today.

The white base is some Neenah solar white cut to 3" square and I had inked the entire stamp with some versafine Morning Mist then dabed the corner of the black pad over what I hoped was the lettering. And again on a scrap of old green-ish Basic grey printed paper. I did give the eye ball and a few of the letters in Christmas some black micron pen after. And used the fineliner pens on the printed paper and the Zig brush markers on the cardfront. One thing about being a person who has been trying to paint with real brushes the last how ever long its been? a couple of years now? when I pick up these markers with brush tips I really do not like them much. It's like the bristles are stiff and they split at the tip so, you never know where its going to go coloring. 

I did piece this into the design slightly offset to the lower right to allow that grey ink to peek behind like a shadow, but it did not really look how I thought so, I ended up using the Zig grey brush to make additional shadows under the pot and scarf. There is also a tiny bit of stardust pen on the scarf, tree and star here also. That's about it from me, I hope you all are doing well & Have a Happy New Years!  thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Buttermilk Basin}

 Hello & Welcome here, its my turn to host the very last Inspiration challenge of 2023 and I have chosen Buttermilk Basin. I am fairly certain that the old old Inky Antics rubber stamps I have with that same designer name on them are the same designer that is doing the the current Quilting shop seen here. But, I am not 100% on that info. So, that being said I knew I wanted to do a snowman and I came across these little Primitive Snowman pillows. 

I decided to stamp this one since it has a square shaped frame with some Versamark on Arches cold press and watercolored him. ( this is first round of paints) 

I did a little outlining with black paint and then when that dried I did add some stardust gelly roll pen over the top of the dried paint to the scarf, hat, buttons & snow splatter in the sky.

I had quilters in my family and I just love all the textiles so, I knew going into this I wanted a layered pattern quilty vibe for the warm wishes type thought. So, I used some really old scraps of printed papers here along with textured bazzill cardstocks. The large pinking shear scissors are real sewing ones. ( cut perfect every time) and the tiny ones are a Mini Pinking deco scissor from Friskars ( also pretty old) the tiny brads are from Micheals, the edges of all those papers were inked with some Distress Oxide vintage photo ink. The red dot paper has some stamped with brown versafine zig zag stitches stamp. ( I have bought lots of these over the years and I do not remember which brand that was)  (maybe Technique Tuesday or possibly Hero Arts) I am not seeing the stamp in evernote and I tossed the first round of clear stamps I ever bought a long time ago. they were not made the same as they are now and deteriorated. The check ribbon is probably from May Arts and The Sentiment Stamp is from Savvy Stamps. This one is 5X7 in real life.  If you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers.  I hope you have been having a beautiful holiday & thanks for stopping by.

watercoloring a scene

 This week Linda has shared this video on YouTube about doing a minimalist scene with watercolor.

I was not really sure what kind of a building this was supposed to be either a barn or a home? hubs first thought was cabin but, I did do something similar to what I had watched starting with a quick sketch of the building.

With a water soluble pencil on some Arches 100% cotton cold press paper.

This is first round of paints.

And a little more, I did reverse the trees as the closest trees were on the right side on the video.

Added in some splatters and birds. 

As I was painting this I was mentally reviewing the card list I need for January and Hubs dad is towards the end of that month. So, the cover got this old Hero Arts sentiment and the inside has this silly Riley & Co. sentiment. This one finished out at 5 X 7 in real life. if you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at SCS. I hope your all doing well & thanks for stopping by.

watercoloring a Christmas birdhouse

 This week Kia has shared this video from Ellen Crimi Trent seen here on YouTube. 

and I really did consider digging out a stamp of a birdhouse to do this with as I have more than a few choices of them but, I picked up a pencil and gave it a whirl.

 It's very faint and done in a water soluble pencil.

first round of paints and I did walk away and let this dry at this point.

I started adding some details monday after work. 

 Tuesday's additions.

 

The base here is some balmy blue from SU in a 5 1/2" square. the watercolor panel was cut with a spellbinders square postage die. The sentiment here is from The Greetery's sentiment suite Christmas. The ribbon is an older one from May Arts and I did add some clear stickles glitter glue to the snow. Thanks for stopping by.

If you'd like to play along with us this challenge can be found here at SCS.

Inspired by {Crafting my Home}

 Happy December :) We had our first measurable real snowfall here at my house this morning. The "crafting my home" collection of pinterest boards has a whole bunch of group contributors to the boards. On one of them ( which I forgot to write my self a note about which board this is on) I found these candy canes made from Pipe Cleaners. So I went to the craft store and bought pipe cleaners. And that is as far as I got with that. they need soaked in tea then dried and fluffed etc. ( Maybe after this years holidays ) I just liked the texture of them a lot. And I think they would be totally cool tied onto gift packages.

I have been die cutting Christmas shapes from sprayed mixed media paper for a few weeks now and I knew I had this Simon Says Stamp candy canes tag die. That I have not really played with much as of yet and I like how wide it is so, it is totally wide enough to write names on the back side ( see below)

So, I did cut some from Neenah Earthstone and SU riding hood red and sprayed sheets. but, I did not paper piece the entire candy canes just every other space. What is interesting about this shot is it was taken with a digital camera and the one below with my cell phone. It struck me funny how cold the cell phone shot is. 

The To From here is an older Impression Obsession stamp done in Versafine Tulip red and the HO Ho HO tag is from Lili of the Valley done in Crimson. On a side note the tags I just linked to are sold out again at the moment but, save it to your favorites. They do restock that stamp set frequently and 3 packs of stamps fit in one of their mailers they use from the UK. (so I tend to buy my stamps from them in trio's as I know they will all fit in the same package) The sparkly cord is May Arts and the jingle bells are from the stash. I have most of mine in old canning jars on the wall so, I could not tell you its size of mfg. info but, the bulk of mine were found at either Joann's or Micheal's. If you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.