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.

Watercoloring a Bunny in Winter

 This week Brenda has shared this video of doing a bunny in snow with watercolors seen here on YouTube. And the sketching the bunny was not going well for me so, after making some blue cardstock I decided to go smaller and taped off a piece of A6 watercolor card.

Stamped off a bunny on a scrap of Neenah regular cardstock with some versafine and cut it out with scissors. 

Added some shadows to the bunny and the snow forgot to add some blue to the very bottom to make the scene more framed. such is life. 

Decided to run the panel through a Penny Black stitched frame die ( the largest in the set) and then taped the pieces back together again after and that was as far as I got before the challenge went live. 

Decided to cut it down a little more and added a redlead sentiment to the bottom. The base is some sundance felt white textured cardstock cut to A6 in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring Negative Hearts

 This week Angie is sharing this video that shows painting the negative space around hearts for depth. I thought the video looked interesting and I gave it a whirl ( on strathmore student paper) 

I thought it may be interesting to have two the same layer touching. if I had to do it again I would have left space between them. 

first round of paint drying under wax paper.

First layer dried, I guess I could have also used some other pencil as I can barely make out the pencil lines here. 

First layer of hearts

next layer. 

So far I am liking the colors here but, I think I would like this better if it was something line forest trees or leaves or something botanical like that rather than the hearts. 

So I cut it down to 5" square wrapped some teal-ish Offray ribbon around the bottom. Poked around in my already stamped sentiments and did not see anything that said pick me. I did mount this to a 5 1/2" square of sparkle bazzill cardstock and this is as far as I got with it. I have to decide what I want to do with it to pick words I think. I am guessing they will be in the lower right corner over that ribbon though when I do figure it out. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.