Watercoloring Watermelons

 Hi & Welcome here. It's my turn to host the watercoloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week and I recently seen this one on doing loose sliced watermelons from Emma Jane Lefebvre called wet on wet watercolor technique Watermelon tutorial (world watercolor month day 3) on YouTube and thought that looks fun and so it was.

 I started with a piece of Arches cold press watercolor I had cut to about A6 in real life and I did not sketch these as it was pretty simple. I did get this first one without any white when the colors were done traveling and then I just started adding more around it. 

 I decided I liked all the white space and stopped here to let it dry and figured I would cut it into a border strip or something.

 When it was dry I added in some random seeds to the slices and let that dry.

 I really liked all the white space so, I decided to keep it and used a hero arts curved rectangle die to cut it out to fit on an A2 sized cardfront.

 Found an really old Tim Holtz cordinations card that has a kraft colored inside that was really close to the outer skin green color on the melons and thought good enough. The sentiment here I am thinking is from Penny Black but, I am not sure which cling set at the moment. And that's about it from me. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Wedgwood}

 This week Kia has shared links to the Wedgwood tableware site & pinterest boards and in my head if I read Wedgwood I think "Jasperware" pattern and so, right off the bat I seen this little rose bowl and the biggest part of time for making this card was searching for a blue paper that would work. 

 So I found this blue scrap in the hanging file folder of blue paper and I have no clue what its MFG info is. The cream here is classic from Neenah. So I cut the Dancing blooms die ( Penny Black ) from it and layered it to the blue scrap without having it horizontally across the card so it ended up being "too wide" and I decided to flip it to vertical and then added the Unity Stamps sentiment below it. I had cut some of the roses and leaves from the Marianne Designs Rose Basket die set and when I tried layering them over this branch it did not look like curved blooms it was just too busy so. I left it like this to be clean and simple and just stopped. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring Cosmos

 This week Linda is sharing this video seen here on YouTube  by Leisls artistic studio that does some really loose simple Cosmo flowers. These are a fairly "new" to me flower and I've had them a couple of years now, they re-seed and the ones I have tend to be white so, I thought it was fun to see them done in Pinks. Mine are in the weedy green stage right now with no buds forming yet so, I did not go out and shoot photos of that. 

This is arches cold press in an A6 size. with some water soluble pencil marks for centers and stems tops. 

I did the wash and splatters with an 16 round brush. And walked away to let it air dry. 

 I used a smaller round brush for the petals because, this is a small piece of paper and I felt like I probably would have gotten larger petals that looked a little more real-ish with a bigger brush but, this is what it was.

And as I looked at the photo above this one I decided there were too many "buds" and not enough blooms so, after I added more darker pink to the centers I added more water to the one kitty corner left of the center flower to extend its petals out longer.

 Like so, 

 And then I started adding random greenery with some sap green. and some yellows to the center facing blooms. 

I did trim down that painted panel with an rectangle spellbinders die and I mounted it to an A7 piece of Textured Neenah Peppered Moss cardstock and then I decided it needed just a bit more paint in the crevices of the open blooms and some detailing vein lines on the petals. So, I did add that after it was on the card. I am not sure what I am going to do with this as of yet so, it has no words on it right now. If you'd like to play along with us you can find the challenge details here at SCS. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 
 

Inspired by {The Little Green Bean}

 This week Denise is sharing the little green bean site and Pinterest boards where I found this prim star ornament and thought OK you can always use more Christmas cards along with this really cute Prim snowman. I've bought stuffed sewn snowmen like that at craft shows so it caught my eye. Ultimately I ended up with something that uses elements from the ornament but, doesn't really look that much like it. 

instead of using sheet music for the center of the star I grabbed a Simon says stamp Shimmering starfall 3-D folder and used it on some Neenah classic cream.  So I cut this Impression Obsession star die from that panel and inked the edges with some DOX scorched timber. 

Instead of stitching around the edges I used a die with stitch details and just wrapped some red hemp string around it loosely and used the foam pop dots to keep the thread from moving. I found this stripe paper on an old Patriotic pad from Authentique called Liberty and cut it with an Studio Light nesting Frames die. I love that its not perfect on the edges you know? so this also got Scorched timber on the outside. That star printed paper came from an Mintay White Christmas pad, because at this point I was still thinking this was going to be a Christmas card. 

When I opened the drawer where I keep previously stamped and die cut sentiments I found this little envelope of letter press ones from Spellbinders. This was from the cheers to you set, I actually wrote that on the envelope yay for me. but, your guess is as good as mine on the color of the ink. It kinda looks gold-ish in real life so it may be a brown shade? ( not sure) The base here is some texture bazzill and this one is 6" square in real life. the pop dots are pretty slim so, I think that even with the depth this is not a get snagged the the postal machines card. That's about it from me, if you would like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Happy Independence day to everyone in America! I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

Trying a sketch

 I don't normally do the sketch challenges, my brain tends to eliminate layers from them even if I print them out at work and lay the sheet on the table. So, I thought when I seen this weeks offering that it looked simple enough I could use up something in the bin on the table. 

So I pulled out this painting from a few weeks ago that is a watercolor done with some Handmade watercolor paints that I did add more paint to it after the challenge and also some birds to the sky. and tucked it into the bin for someday.

 I cut a piece of Neenah texture green card to be a 5" square card and then found this stitched hillside die and thought it would work really well for the curve at the bottom. (this is upside down) I think its supposed to be turned the other way so the stitches end up on your finished piece but, since I was using textured cardstock with strong horizontal lines I decided to turn the die the other way so the stitching would end up on the drop piece if that makes sense. 

 I stamped that sentiment on a scrap of SU green smooth cardstock and die cut it a long time ago but, best guess is from the font its maybe from Stamping Bella. Those little black pearls are from Recollections and It was just that simple. The colors are a little off and dark on the finished card but, that is getting to be my new normal up here if I shoot something not in the first morning light. That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring Quick Wildflowers

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube doing very quick simple loose wildflowers. I did watch the whole video then did something kinda similar with different colors and slightly different brushes.

 The first round of paints went on with an 12 round brush. The paper was cut to about A6 ish before hand. its some cold press arches.

 When I went to find an oval brush I ended up finding this one which had a pointed tip and I decided to use it the same way she used her flat round brush for the leaves. so, they did end up a little more pointed for me that way.

 I had this MFT mod rectangle die on the table from something else so I ended up using it to trim down that panel when the paint was dry and I did add some more darker dots of color to it for contrast. The base here is some SU soft seafoam and this is A2 in real life. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.