watercoloring Tree's drills

 This week Brenda is sharing a video from Joe Cartwright with tips on painting better looking trees in watercolor landscapes seen here on YouTube. There is a lot of information in this video and I feel like I forgot a lot of it by the time I started to paint so, its one of those things I will have to see several times I think later. I did watch the whole thing before I started to paint, and I also grabed a sheet of the same textured Artists loft watercolor paper I used last week and I started with a leafy type tree in Autumn colors.

I did this with a script and a fan brush and Daniel Smith paints.

and then I thought oh, yeah you can use that brush to do poplar type trees. Sure.

which did not go so well for me, this will take some practice. (this may be the first time I have used these fan brushes, I can't remember using them before anyways) 

So then I tried a conifer type tree and I really liked how this one turned out color & shape wise so, I cut it off the sheet and made it a Christmas card.

I did add a little more paint to this there was just not quite enough depth to the places my mind said there should be shadows. The frame here is from the Mama Elephant deckled frames set ( it really makes a solid rectangle) so, I used an Hero Arts nesting rectangle to turn it into an actual frame. The edges were inked with some DOX vintage photo. That tree printed paper is from an Hobby Lobby pad and the sentiment here is from Tim Holtz stamped on a Justrite tag die and tied onto the sheer ribbon with some natural hemp string. This one is 5 1/2" square in real life as most of the 6" cards I have mailed the last few months the envelopes are something like 1/4 maybe 1/8" larger than the post offices "large envelope" limit so, those cards were mailed as "packages" and I am trying to get my sizes smaller before Christmas as that is a big bulk mail thing right? :) 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.

Inspired By {Hello Hayley}

 This week Julie is sharing the Hello Hayley site and pinterest boards collection for the Inspiration challenge at Splitcoaststampers. And I kept coming back to this pin of a decorated tired tray. I love this. every single thing about this mug shot. I did know in the back of my mind that I could probably duplicate this very easily with dies. but, I decided to start poking around in my have never been inked Christmas stamps again and pulled out this from Impression Obsession. I know it does not look anything like the pin but, I think it picks up the colors and rustic Christmas vibe.

I stamped it with some Morning mist versafine ink and then added a layer of Daniel Smith watercolors over it. 

And after that layer dried I did add more paint and decided to add some clear stickles glitter glue to spots in the window panes and snow piles but, it was so subtle that.

I dug out a jar of snowtex and I remembered how hard this is to get it to stick and or be in anyway kind of organized ha ha. I had it all over my fingers and the bristles of a acrylic paint brush and the end of the brush also. ( I think I need something teeny tiny-er) to poke in that jar next time as I really enjoy seeing the texture on other people's projects. So, that's where I stopped with that. 

The painted panel was cut with a Penny Black stitched frame that I ended up taping back together on the back side of this. That is Arches Hot press watercolor paper (smooth) and then layered it to some Recollections kraft ( the one that looks like a paper bag) and the base here is an Tim Holtz Coredinations bundled sage cut to A6 in real life. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring an Autumn Still life

 This week Kia is sharing this still life painting idea from Harriet DeWinton seen here on YouTube. I did watch the whole video before I started painting and I totally intended to do some pastel type colors but, somehow I forgot what colors went where when I started to paint.

I did sketch this scene with an water soluble pencil, and you guessed it my acorns were absorbed by the paint when I started with the ground shadow like in the video. I did walk away at this point and let it dry.

So, this is the second layer of paint for the ground and first for all the things you see. This is Daniel Smith watercolors on some Artist Loft watercolor paper I picked up at Micheal's on Sunday because, it had this interesting texture to it. I  think it went mostly OK compared to strathmore paper but, it is not as easy to blend on as say Arches cotton paper. but, I kept going because, I thought it was not so bad. 

After adding more paints and the shadows to the still life I did cut this out with an Mama Elephant Deckled frame die. The base here is river rock and its finished out at A6 in real life. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.

October Dirty Dozen Christmas Prompt

 Continuing this years theme the challenge prompt for October has gone live here at Splitcoaststampers in the special forums set aside for Fan Club members to create a little every month and have less "to do" stress during that traditionally mad rush crafting season that happens before the holidays for a lot of people. On this month's sample I started with a sheet of double sided Bo Bunny press paper that had random snowflakes on one side and mostly solid with some script and collage elements on the flip side.

These skinny tags and star re-enforcers are from the Mama Elephant slim tags trio die set. I love this set, I have cut it so many times I have considered buying it again to be able to cut more of them at once. I was thinking in my mind of something corset like for a pattern with them. 

But, I did end up arranging them not in a straight line where they tied up and flipping the pieces around so that it was a little more like coordinated random. I kept thinking the whole time I was building the background that I would tie on a dangling snowflake and maybe a sentiment on that. something snarky about snow was the way my brain was going but, then I came across this bitty little snowman in the previously colored images pile and cut it out with scissors to fit on this other stitched tag diecut from the same doily/wood grain printed paper. It's hard to see but, after the tags were arranged I did add clear stickles glitter glue to the centers of all the snowflakes on this and the hat trim for the snowman also as the white gouache I added to that did not want to photograph. 

I am not sure who makes the snowflake charm but, that sentiment is from the Lili of the Valley Christmas sentiment tags set done with some Brown Acorn Versafine, cut with scissors and then has some DOX browns inked along the edges. That snowman is from Hampton Arts when they used to make Studio G dollar bin stamps. It was probably stamped with Versafine and it looks like it was water colored. The doily wood grain printed paper is probably MME but, was ripped out of a pad so not certain anymore and the base here is some of that brown kraft that looks like paper bag paper. This is A2 in real life. That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Poster Store}

 This week Amy has chosen the Poster Store for the Inspiration site and I knew I wanted something quick and easy to do. So, I started looking at the Christmas section and came across this poster of the simple cup filled with gingerbread cookies and smiled. 

I did seriously dig out some Teacup dies and started eyeballing gingerbread stamps and dies and thought. I may come back to that idea later when there is more time and started poking around in stamps that I have not inked and found this Whipper Snapper Designs one called ginger in a mug appropriately enough haha.

Stamped it with some Morning mist versafine on Hot Press (smooth) watercolor paper and proceeded to paint it with some Daniel Smith paints.  I did add both some Windsor & Newton white gouache and Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white to the white places and then added a bit of grey fineliner pen to some nooks and crannies after the paint dried. This panel was cut with an Impression Obsession crazy stitched die and then inked along the edges with gathered twigs & walnut stain Distress Oxide Inks. the base here is a premade one that has that whole paperbag kraft thing going on. ( its thin) but, I am still working on using up all these premade card bases so, This one is also A2 in real life. The sentiment here is from the Impression Obsession set called Gingerbread kisses. 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 Simple Christmas Foliage

 This week Linda is sharing this video tutorial from Liesl's Artistic Studio Called everything you need to make endless Christmas card possibilities. I did watch the whole video and instead of doing card front's I decided to cut some Arches cold press watercolor into Tag shapes. (both of these dies are older ones from Papertreyink) 

I decided on the dot flowers with pine springs for the first tag and handily enough, it has a groove cut along the edge so that was easy to run the brush along with shimmery gold paint. 

Decided on berries, holly & pine sprigs for the second and added some gold paint to the faux stitch detailing along the edge. 

for the second square tag I decided to do the dot flowers again with holly berries and pine sprigs. and then I added some white Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white in some spots. 

When the third one was dry I did add some gold to the stitches and more (darker) green to the pine sprigs to it. I am not so sure what I want to do with these yet so, I have not added sentiments to them as of yet. I am considering cutting a few more tags. I did for the heck of it try the pine cone she had shown on some scratch paper some where between tags but, it did not look like hers. my best guess is she used a mostly dry/damp brush and then just had (thick) paint on only the tip of the brush. because, if you do a wet brush you will get solid color pressing like she does. but, I ran out of time to try that idea. I don't do well with the whole very little water thick paint thing so, its all good. I am pretty tickled with how these have turned out so far. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by.