Inspired by {Zenglo}

 This week Julie is sharing the Zenglo site and Pinterest boards where I found this sweet pin with the blue and pink birds and I just started to grin because, I happen to have a pad of printed paper that has sheets with you guessed it Pink & Blue birds... and I decided why not.

 So I used the largest die in the Pinkfresh notched corner frames set to trim down the sheet of printed paper that came off the Piatek Trzynastego Called Awakening. I did ink the edges of this with some Distress Oxide Speckled egg ink and then used some memories Hero Arts soft sage ink with the Impression Obsession Hello Spring sentiment stamp directly on the paper. The base under this is the Neenah saw grass cardstock finished out at A6. I though the birds needed just a little pop from the background so I did under line them in the place you would normally put a shadow when painting with a white gel pen line. I think it pops the birds a little more in real life as these colors are a little darker on this computer screen than the card looks to me. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by. 

Tulips Continued

 So, I've been adding layers of paint to the stamped tulips off and on for days. and this morning it looked like this

 

 And I thought about it and thought you know, you may as well finish this off into something. I had this pad of paper from a company called Piatek Trzynastego "awakening" and I decided to pull out this green distressed text paper and I cut a hole in the center ish of it trimmed down to just under 6" square to work as a window frame for the tulips. ( Club scrap ) 

 This is actually a soft pale minty type green in real life. The colors are off between the iPhone camera and my DSLR so. I also found that the spellbinders tape I use to hold dies down on paper to cut it decided to tear the top layer off this paper when I removed it. and I thought about it and decided that I did not really want to find a vertical sentiment but, I had this other tulip set out on the table from Hero Arts and it had a Happy Birthday in it So, I used that for the sentiment on the paper and just decided to ink the edges of this printed paper with some DOX bundled sage ink. ( it picks up a bit of the yellowish green in the stems in real life) 

 I am debating roughing up some more of the edges as the inked white space in the "holes" is kind of obvious where my fingers hit it and pulled the paper apart more. might just stick some glue in there and press it flat again. I also added some shadows under the petals and some dots of green paint over the grey ink "splatter" in the stamped image part of it. I am thinking this turned out better than I had hoped with the adding the paint in layers over time. I am slightly curious how many layers of paint was on the painting that partial tutorial had in reality but, not curious enough to pay to know. Its just one of those odd moment thoughts as the reds in her crevices are nearly black they are so deep to me when I loop at it. I think I am going to try this again with some tulip stamps that have more open space and less definition on them to see. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by. 

Dirty Dozen April Promt & Sample

 It's that time again, time to unveil the April theme for the Dirty Dozen Christmas cards challenge at Splitcoaststampers. You can read all the details here in the special forums for Fan Club members.

I started out thinking about doing some kind of a play off the 12 days of Christmas but, all the things I started pushing around were just too big for a card front, and I almost made some tags. and then I found this piece of paper in a Prima pad that had this little file folder collage on it and I liked that, so I cut it off the printed paper and started pulling out ephemera from some 49 & Market packs, and sentiments I had previously stamped and die cut, Stickers from Simple Stories pads and ended up with this.

I did leave some blank space in the top left corner of the library card piece because, I'm considering adding a monogram to that space when it gets gifted. The edges of all the diecut sentiments were inked with some DOX speckled egg ink and this is actually a little more on the Minty & Pink-ish toned side in real life but, its grey and gloomy here. ( Maybe going to do a last hurrah snowstorm tonight. and That's not an April fools joke. ) ( we could certainly use the snow in the mountains so, fingers are crossed all over the place in this part of the state at the moment) 

The no peeking has some burlap string tied through its hole to the diecut clip piece and other than that this is pretty flat in real life. It's also A7 on some Stampin' Up succulent cardstock. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

 

Adding Depth to Painting

 This week Linda is sharing this quick video on adding depth with paint values to some tulips. And the basic gist of it was wet the area, paint. let it dry and repeat. 

And I started thinking I own dozens of Tulip stamps there was no reason not to find one as I started this watercoloring journey as a reason to color stamps I already own. So, with that thought in mind I dug out one of my oldest Tulip stamps from Club Scrap. I used some Arches Hot Press cotton paper as its smooth and takes stamps with details well and some Versafine Clair Morning mist (grey) ink.

 I had this red/purple mixed color on the palette and decided to roll with that. and then I did add some yellow to the center bloom.

 Second layer of paint.

 next layer of paint. It was billing day at work today so, I started this late and I knew it was not going to turn into a finished project with the drying times so, I am just adding more paint as I steal time to this. I feel like I want to trace over some of the stamped ink lines are that grey is a little too dark for this light wash. and so, the flowers may end up going a lot darker than this with more layers.

 I think I remember reading her say not to outline the flowers with the paint so, so far the ink lines have stayed that way. and they are a little bit too dark I am guessing for a no line look so, I may try this again with a paler tan shade of ink. That is another thing I have issues with on sketching is I use an water soluble pencil so, getting it wet from the get go means I lose the shape instantly more or less. I am having some fun seeing this evolve and I think you may enjoy it was well. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by. 

 I did add another layer of paint to this before I went to bed last night and then,

 Another layer into the crevices mainly this morning. this is not dry and so, I will look at it again when I get home from work today. But, the one thing I was thinking this morning is. I did save some time not sketching a bloom but, it is taking lots of layers of paint to go over the grey ink. I am starting to see some depth to this now and this is more like 7 or 8 layers of paint I think I skipped shooting a few as I could not see much difference with my eyes. And if you read through all those rambles, thanks again for stopping by.

Inspired by {Elephant Stock}

 Hello & Happy Spring This last weekend of March this year Amy has chosen the Elephant Stock site for inspiration at Splitcoaststampers and I seen so many cute things that I finally had to stop looking it was such a deep well of eye candy. I decided to use this Joy sign with a bunny and flowers as my jump start.

 

 I knew I had this Penny Black Immense Joy die and I decided to cut it from some thin 90# watercolor paper by Artist loft. ( I grabbed this pad because it was on sale and did not notice the weight.) flimsy for painting on but, works OK for die cutting and stacking. The Joy was cut 3 times and glued together. After some debate and running out of time I decided to leave that as it was and focused on bunny dies. This particular one is called Rabbit from Gummiapan and I did cut it twice from the same watercolor paper and then added just a smidge of Daniel Smith watercolor to it, to bring out the details the die has. Wanting to add some soft flowers I pulled this page off of a pad from Hobby Lobby I picked up last weekend called Distressed Florals. I did trim it down to be slightly smaller than A2 in real life and just inked the cut edges with some speckled egg DOX ink. The base here is a pre made 49 & Market cardbase that is probably a Christmas one but, the colors worked so, all that is left to do to this is line the inside of the card where the note gets written as this cardbase is on the thin side to my fingers. 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. 

Watercoloring an Abstract tree with flowers

 This week Suz is sharing a Paul Clark video seen here on YouTube. Called How to paint a spring garden Scene. So I used some Arches Cold press paper and Daniel Smith paints. 

I realized as I started the yellow into the wash that the pencil was going to dissolve and the only thing I had tried to sketch was the tree trunk.

 So, I did watch the video and I really could not remember what came after the yellow in the sky if it was the purple flowers, the grass or the tree trunk. So, I just kept painting as I knew I probably would not end up with something that looked too much like his painting and I knew I had to keep going to keep it moist. 

 So I started in with the trunk and did remember the drag the end of the brush through the paint detail.

 So I added in some tulips to the background and then more grass.

 More splatters in the purples, more tulips, more grass. misted the paper some more as it was drying pretty quickly by this time.

 Decided to add a third kind of abstract flower that was a combination of red and purple. more splatters etc.

 more of the same.

 I did add more splatters which did not do much so, I ended up dropping in the paint where I wanted some darks.

Tried adding some yellow tulips and more drops of paint to the dark red-ish purple flowers at the bottom.added some darker colors to the edges. 

Tried to add some dark to the edges of the paper as it was so faded. and added more to the edges of the branches and such. I did start to wonder if this would have turned out better on Rough texture paper ( I have some but, it was handy to reach for just the cold press. I have let this sit aside to dry and see what happens when it is dry. 

 What it dried like. I am not so sure I have an idea for this yet so, its just loose paper still. I am thinking I like how the purple flower layers dried and maybe this will work cut down smaller than this someday. Not sure yet. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by.