A featured Stamper Bird

 This week Heather is the featured stamper at Splitcoaststampers and I have not been able to steal time to play along for a long while but, I feel deeply in love with so many of her bird cards in her gallery and I just kept coming back to this bird crazy birthday with the angle. ( its so unlike something I would do as I tend to shy away from blue and angles) So, knowing I needed to make changes I chose a different bird from that set and stamped it with some bali blue ink on Arches cold press watercolor paper and started layering on some paints. 

I did this kinda wet on wet and did not want those colors to bleed so I left some white space between them.

 

I didn't want to end up with a flat bird and I was not sure if this cartoon one would get rounded with shadows but, I decided to try and just kept adding more paint to it. 

 added some green to his back and more paints to the blues. 

 Added some paynes grey blue to the places where I though there should be deeper shadows and walked away again. 

 

After work today I deepened all the shadows again and decided to paint the whites of the eyes a pale green. I am thinking there is some kind of glaze on her birds eyes but, this is all just paint here. 

 This didn't photograph so well. Its cloudy here and trying to rain, so the colors are a little off. Its more cheery in person I think. That green base is some lettuce color by Coredinations if that gives you any idea. the Printed paper is from the Memory Box madras plad blue & violet pad and so the areas that look gold are foiled and they shine in person. The photocorners are something that I've had for at least 20 years. ( I am pretty sure they are an old sizzix die one of the green original ones ) but, I didn't dig out the die to test that idea. The sentiment here is from Annette Allen Watkins It's up on foam pop dots and I cut it out with that stitched die a while back so, I don't remember which set it was, I tend to diecut stamped sentiments with multiple dies out at once looking at sizes rather than brands. The painted panel was cut with a die from the lots of squares set and it cuts the frame separate from the center so, instead of embedding it I wiggled it to tilt. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

Inspired by {Scully & Scully}

 Do those words make you think the truth is out there? ha, I remember that name being one of the what were they FBI agents? something. I don't watch much TV but, I remember watching something a long time ago with Mulder & Scully. At any rate this is a fancy gift shop I am guessing and I came across these trees and I knew I had a watercolor panel started from a few months ago ( seen here ) that had simple trees and I decided it could work. 

 So I did manage to clear a space to play before Dinner last night but, then I ran out of daylight so I didn't make it back up here until about 3 am and I took the tape off the edges of the tree panel from January and it tore on both sides of it. ( the other two sides the paper was flapping in the wind go figure right?) So I used a Memory Box globe? something an arched die the largest one in the set to trim it down.

 You can't really tell from this angle but that pile that has the plastic piece on the top of it has previously started things, Die cut things, colored images, painted things. I and have the idea that if they were out and in my way maybe I would do something with it... so everything on this card came from that pile under the plastic. The home is a die cut from the tall tags die set from the stamp market. So there is an envelope of some of those I cut way back when. This one the home was cut from some woodgrain printed paper and then I used a scrap of Neenah cardstock for behind that to give it some stability. This is up on foam pop dots over the scene. The sentiment came out of that milk glass tray and it turns out to be from the Taylored Expressions Santa Stop Here set. I have not figured out what I die cut it with as of yet. the blue card base was also in that pile and I guess I made it as it feels more sturdy than those premade cards so? not sure but, its A2 in real life. And so far that's about it from me. The clean up will commence after this and hopefully. This will become a little more peaceful up here soon. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. I hope you are having an nice weekend as well, Thanks for stopping by.

Piles & more Piles

 There are days when it feels like I am just rotating piles since I have tried to absorb so much of my mama's studio into mine. I have huge piles for my oldest niece but, I did keep back a bunch of things that I think I may play with eventually ( if I can stop tripping over the piles that is) and so, every so often I buy some new storage thing thinking this is going to help. today what came in the mail was this galvanized magazine holder from Amazon. ( its flimsy) it will do what it needs to do but, I need to have it bracketed by things sturdier than it to keep it from I think having those dividers snap off. I like metal things so when they knocked the price down a little I thought well, its about the same as buying a stack of the clear plastic ones from Micheals. ( I think the plastic ones are sturdier actually) 

 So I shoved it in the corner on top of the file cabinets managed to get some magazines into it. (I had a small pile of Stampers Samplers and take tens that I had not donated to the library and she had binders and binders full of magazines mostly from the UK that have tools in them, stamps or folders or dies. and I didn't mail the binders to my self just the magazines and tools so, they have been in piles. I started out putting them into job ticket holders from Amazon and ( I need many more packages of those) These are the same things I use to hold say Tim Holtz cling stamp sets. I just trim them down to 8 1/2" so that they work like pockets. Anyways the basket in front of that has stencils in it. Another thing that takes up some space that I keep moving around trying to find a home for them where I might actually look at them and or use them. They are kind of like embossing folders in my space and I know I have them but, they don't get used much. 

 This lead to me burying the top of the table and I need a little room to make some kind of a sample for the Inspiration challenge tonight. I had moved my markers and pens back to the table and this has not been touched since I put it on top of the file cabinet. I am debating about how much of those pens I should keep as. I find that what I am really enjoying the last few years is water coloring. I do sometimes pull out a pen to do some details into crevices but, for the most part I do not touch these I guess I should also make time to see how many of them are even juicy anymore. I will figure it out eventually but, I had to laugh at my self I used to play along with the Wednesday whats on your work desk blog hops way back when and I enjoyed seeing how other people organized things. So, if you ever wondered what it really looks like besides the finished projects or cropped shots on the table, this is a peek into the reality I am doing at the moment. I tell my self it will get better. I think I will be letting go of things faster than I intended to get there but, better days are coming and they are called Saturday & Sunday. Thanks for stopping by. 

A baby Boy card

 One of the guys at work his family is expecting a baby boy soon-ish. and this boy will have 4 older sisters so, they are all a little excited about that fact so, I have been poking around in my stamps trying to come up with an card idea for the shower gift. ( I have time) and I started with this Hooked on Stamps cowboy baby image stamped with some Versafine sand dune ink on Arches hot press (smooth) watercolor paper and started adding paint to it. 

last night 
 

and then after work today I added a few more layers. The skin tone is a little more pink than this in real life but, I just could not get it to photograph well.

I recently received a happy mail box from Unity Stamps and this printed paper pack was in it. (and on the table) so it influenced the blue hat band as well. The postage die cut frame was on the table from probably the last time I cut scraps and it happened to be close enough in size that I only had to trim the painted panel down a sliver for it to work. I did leave some space to the right of him to add a sentiment later but, my mind is blank on this because, this baby is obviously not a newborn and so, it may work better as a birthday card instead some time. (maybe for an old cowboy) I'm not real sure yet. So, I am thinking it will be back to the drawing board for me. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Thinking of you herbs

 and that whole dig out an old stamp and see what happens continues...

So this round of that game was started with this row of potted herbs from Stampin' Up! Sweet herbs set stamped with some versafine sand dune ink on cold press watercolor paper. I was hoping it would give me enough of a guide to paint and not be so in your face that it could go "no line" look at the end.

 

So this morning before work I added in some greens. I did not try to make them real but, I did try to do pots next to each other not the same shade of green.

And when I came home I started adding some shading and a little more greens and browns and such and when the paint was dry on the name signs I did go over the top of those with a brown fine liner pen.

 

The edges of all the cut papers were inked with some DOX bundled sage ink. That sentiment ( Hero Arts ) was stamped on a scrap of Neenah earthstone and also inked. the green scrap under it was run through the cuttlebug gingham folder when I was playing with that the other day and this was the trial piece I had that I used in the folder before I used it on the piece that went on the other card to see if the scale of the squares would work. ( I cut this scrap piece into strips yesterday) thinking to use them on the watering can card but, I realized it was already "not clean" or much on the simple side so I let it sit. The printed paper under that is from the Prima Nature garden pad and the base here is some Neenah classic cream. This is A6 in real life and I am liking how the paints dried so, this is tempting to pull out some other old stamp and see what happens. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a simple tree

 I am laughing out loud at the title of this post. This week we are giving this tree created with a fan brush a whirl for the watercoloring challenge and this was suggested by Janine this week as a guest host. You can see the short ( 1 minute ) Video on Facebook here. by Matthew Palmer. If you go to his YouTube channel and click on the shorts, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to find it. But the title is 60 second lesson A Summer Tree. 

So, I thought no problem ( he makes it look very easy) and I started looking at my brushes. I was pretty sure I owned a fan brush and the first thing I found was this. ( a fan Wisp brush) 

So I thought lets see what happens. 

 

Too much white space so, I took all the brushes out of the jar and found this smaller even shorter brush.

My thought was the bristles were just too short. so, I thought OK Micheals is open go see if they have any brushes on the shelf. ( its a hit and miss store, and its the only craft store that is in this town now, the next closest ones are 80 miles west of here) 

 

So ,these were the only fan brushes they had. and they claim to be the same size made by the same company but the one on the left looked like it had more bristles to me. and they were doing a buy one get one half off sale so I thought what the heck and brought them both home. ( these are also listed in their store as Acrylic brushes not watercolor ones but, they did not seem too stiff so I thought OK they should work) 

 Okay so at this point the length of the bristles does not seem to matter much and now I am thinking maybe this needs a lot less water like paint more straight out of the tube consistency? Not really sure but that is the game plan for the next thing to try. 

 And then I had an AH-Ha moment... I tried doing the brush in a flat-ish perpendicular (horizontal) to the paper type angle and kept the bristles at the top of the page and the bottom of the brush towards me and then drug / waved the brush down the page towards me. If you normally paint with a round brush and the handle is up in the air, that is what I was doing with these brushes. So the angle is important here. 

 So with that figured out, I decided it was time to switch to some Arches cold press paper and try a whole tree. 

 And I did use the small brush I owned before this all started and that worked. 

So I added a little more darker green to it because, the colors were a little too close to each other I guess to really see the different shades. And I wanted some shadow sections.

I then let this sit for two days trying to figure out what to do with it. I was just so excited by the time I finished getting the hand/brush/paint to work I just picked it up and set it down a lot.

 So far I have left off the sentiment as I am not sure what I want to do with this and I have mounted it simply to a premade 49& market card base. Its A2 in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.