Inspired By {Food Network}

 It's my turn to host the Inspiration Challenge and a while back I had the "bright" idea to choose the Food Network Channel. They have a collection of Pinterest Boards here. The thought behind it was, I own lots of cake and cupcake stamps and I struggle with coloring ideas for them and my assumption was I would find lots of pretty decorated cakes to view there without really investigating this assumption and my back up plan was I also own people stamps who are wearing Chef clothing ha ha. 

So, I did get lucky and find this pin of a "Smores" cake and I loved that there was more than one shade of brown on it and I knew that I own some old Darcies "Smores" rubber stamps. So out came this little one that is H-4566 and I stamped it with some Versafine Sand Dune ink on some Arches 100% cotton cold press watercolor paper and added a little Daniel Smith paints to it.

 And I realized after it was all the way dry there were a few spots that had more water than I had seen while it was wet so, of course there was that travel out of the lines after it dried. and I decided to just let it go. It's the charm of hand crafted is the motto of the day. And then as I started to build the card with this image I realized that A I really like the color combo pink and brown as a lot of my brown papers have pink undertones and it worked well with the heart cheeks and heart on the image so, it does not really mimic the inspiration pin that much as its more of an "inspired by" rather than a CASE'd project. 

The little Smores and that dotted mat were cut with the smallest dies in the Studio Light nested frames set, That sentiment is from a very old Gina K wishing well set and was cut with some rectangle die. The base here is some two sided (tones) Uniquely Creative "Chocolate" from Australia and it was cut down to 5 1/2" in real life, that band that juts across is the drop piece. The pink and brown plaid here is from the Carta Bella Cowgirl pad. That ribbon is a really old one from Martha Stewart, ( like decades old) And that's about it from me, I hope you are doing well. If You'd care to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Watercoloring Lures

 This week it is my turn to host the water coloring challenge and I came across this two-fer video seen here on YouTube. by Erin Eno that has one painting with these frilly lures that I cannot tell you what kind they happen to be and that caught my eye. and the second painting in the video is a simple mountain scene. The video is a little long because of that and the actual painting does not start until after 7 minutes into it. It starts with her showing how she draws lines to center things for her cards. And it was in my mind a little too complicated for me so I decided what I liked about her lure card was that the lures were centered and different. 

 So because it was a trio of images I did decide to use a centering ruler for some small dots where the lures would "go" the cold press paper was cut to a square before the painting started so, it only had to go one direction if that makes sense. 

 So the second thing I did was doodle some lure-ish shapes with the pencil. they are not precise and I am fine with that. 

 And then I did a faint wash of some "water" for the background so the lure "feathers?" could look like they were flowing in the water. 

 This is where things got hinky in my head, because I cannot figure out what kind of lures these were supposed to be I knew the "eye" was so odd to me and yet, I found my self painting what I had remembered from the video anyways.

I did keep adding more "feathers" and a little darker colors along the edges, and those odd duck bill shaped things the eye for the line would go and it did get a little more even as it was on the card front below.

 I used a Spellbinders Perfect touch rectangle die to cut this and it got off center going through the big shot. That happens some times, at least it did not tweak and go crooked. So I inked the edges of that with some DOX Jeans ink. The printed paper here is a recent find from the Unity Stamps Take em fishing pack and the base is some textured Bazzill. The sentiment here is from the Impression Obsession kit from May of 2023 and it was done with Versafine on Neenah and cut with A Tim Holtz Stacked deckle die and inked with the same jeans ink. This is 5 1/2" square in real life and That's about it from me. I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. 

Inspired by {Moda Operandi}

 This Memorial day weekend Amy is sharing the Moda Operandi site and pinterest boards. And I came across this light colored straw cowboy hat. and I laughed and laughed. Because, I had received this Whimsy stamps Cowboy Obsession stamp set and printed paper in the mail a day before I seen that and I had made her hat that color a few hours before that... and I thought OK lets just keep it simple.

 The couple was stamped with Versafine Morning Mist ink on some cold press 100% cotton watercolor paper and painted with Daniel Smith watercolors. The sentiment from that same set of stamps was done with Pine cone ink. When the paint was dry I cut this out with a new to me die set from Craft Addiction UK called Stitched craft fusion frames. I did get mine from Color me Nordic here. I thought the stitching details could lend itself to western style. And I then cut it out with some Kraft cardstock and it really showed off the stitches really well but, I wanted to use some of this scenic paper. ( every sheet in this pack is gorgeous) So, I cut one piece with a large die and then cut out a smaller section from its center. And I put the second frame up on foam pop dots) and then layered these over the watercolor/kraft layers. The base layer here is some Bazzill Quick Sand textured cardstock and this is 6" square in real life. I did try to give him some of that five o' clock shadow and then removed most the grey from the skin and went back over the top with the same shades of skin tone I blended for her. I think there is a little bit of contrast between their faces. I did still struggle with where to put the shadows on the folds of their shirts but, I am pretty tickled with how this turned out all in all. I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. 

Watercoloring Loose Anemone's

 This week Linda is sharing this video seen here on YouTube that is a loose pitcher of Anemone flowers. When I turned on the Closed captioning it wrote the words in I think it may have been Spanish so, I turned it off and this was done from memory from just watching it. I am sure I did not use the same colors and I probably skipped around the steps out of order but, I think I got the gist of it. 

All my splatters were tiny, just really tiny so, I kept going up in brush size. I did some splatter-y loose blobs of what I was hoping would become the backgrounds of the flowers on the edges leaving some space for white-ish blooms in the center. 

 So I added in some leaf suggestions along with a wonky tilted pitcher top ha and another layer of paint to the flowers.

another layer of paint pretty much every where. 

 

I started adding darker rings to the centers of the blooms and more splatters and more leafy background suggested things so it wasn't so clean on the edges. 

 More splatters and paints. 

 and even darker paints to the centers of the blooms. the shapes of the leaves overlapping the rim of the pitcher bug me every time so, they get more paint every round as well. 

 I kept adding shadows to the leaves but, they just look harsh and too there not loose to me so, I just kept adding more. ha and along the edges of the pitcher as well. the shadows are deeper. 

I tried a white gel pen, actually I tried 3 different ones. They didn't do much to my eye so I used some white gouache straight out of the tube by this point. And I am thinking about trying to press this flatter in the bigshot while I am at work today while I still ponder some words for finishing it off. I really do not have any floral cards on my needed list at the moment so, its a mental road block.  So When I came home I pulled it out of the bigshot and it was slightly flatter but, not a completely flat painting. and I don't have an idea about what to do with it so, this is where I stopped.

 That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well And If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Inspired by {Kartoti Designs}

 This week Denise is sharing the Kartoti Designs site and pinterest boards collection and I came across this pin with these framed black and white sketches. And I thought that could make a cool ( fast easy card) ( its been a rollercoasterofaweek) So, I had originally decided to use Christmas flowers and knock out a Christmas card but, most of my Christmas flower stamps are large. for the most part I seem to have not many "sketchy" type stamps and the ones that I do have are very large geared more towards watercoloring.

But, I found this stamp from the Club Scrap Girlfriends set and thought OK and all those squares and blooms are all one stamp and thought ok back to the quick and easy idea... This is stamped with some Versafine clair nocturn ink on Neenah solar white 110# cardstock in a Misti so that I could ink the stamps several times for best coverage since this is a one layer card I wanted that ink to be bold and there.

 The sentiment here is from the Stampin' Up! Thoughtful branches set. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well.  This card is finished out at 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. 

Watercoloring a gumtree bloom

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube to do a gumtree flower in watercolor. I have never in my wildest dreams imagined such an unusual bloom. At first glance my first thought was sea anemone. So I sketched a kinda top to the bloom with some hanging leaves.

 On a piece of cold press arches cotton watercolor paper. 

I added a first layer of paints and walked away.

 

At work today I printed off a screen shot of the video bloom/pod/leaves and 3 different pins This one 

And this one 

and this one as well. 

I seen on Pinterest with these flowers. I could not make up my mind when I googled them last weekend which colors to choose and finally today decided on the pinkish ones. (they also come in a white and a red) The things that interested me most about the photos besides the color idea was how the leaves drape, shape type thing. I did skip the pod in this painting as it did not interest me much. 

 I spent a bunch of time mixing that color for the ends of the pink petals? its 3 or 4 colors and it dried flat and invisible.

So I mixed up a yellow tinted one and went right over the top of the dried light color. thinking it could be a shadow under it all.

 

And I continued to add more to where I thought there should be shadows and ultimately ended up doing just plain white dots two more times in those spaces.

 At this point I decided it was starting to look kinda muddy and over worked so, I let that dry and then added some shadows under things thinking that maybe the whites would pop later when dry because of that.

 So this is where I stopped with this. I am not sure I would do anything with this so, I like the colors of it and it was an interesting thing to try. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.