Inspired by {Kuyike}

 This week Kia is sharing the Kuyike store site that has pinterest boards seen here. And right on the home page I seen This top with what looked like flowers painted over woodgrain, and I had an Ah-Ha moment as I have a pack of this Brutus Monroe paper that is flowers on woodgrain prints...

So, out came the pack of paper and the Hero Arts nested Tee Shirt dies. ( this is the largest die in the set) 

 I had this piece of green printed paper just laying on the table from the watercolor earlier in the week and I needed some contrast so, I ran it through the bigshot in this Penny Black stitches folder. The Sentiment here is from Riley & Company and I had stamped it on this pale green scrap a while back and die cut it. ( I think that is a MFT die but, I don't remember what that shape is called. The base here was finished out at A6 in real life and it's just a simple one but, the idea that there are no pants in the scene made me snicker. 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 a Floral Meadow

 This week Brenda is sharing this video called easy loose floral watercolor seen here on YouTube by Cecy Catalan Painting a Meadow. There is no closed captioning on that video but, it is short and I think most people if you have been trying the videos at SCS this last few years will understand what you are seeing and you know if you have questions, ask them someone will know the answer. 

 I watched the video and decided to just start a painting real quick on some Arches cold press paper and as soon as I shot this as layer one I knew there was just not enough paint on it for the background. So, I immediately painted another layer over this while it was wet.

 So my second ( blurry background layer) is how I thought of it. 

What I added next, some foreground grass and splatter dot flowers. Some ground shadows of deeper green with a little brown tucked in. 

what the layer above dried to. So I added a little more paint, some more flowers. I did use regular watercolor paint for the yellow centers in the daisy type flowers added below and the white blooms are white gouache paint straight from the tube. 

I also added some grass sprig (leaves?) what ever you call the top of grass that makes it look like its seedy. (grass seeds?) ha, its been a crazy long day we are getting new emails at work and home so, my brain is tired. I had thought I was going to add more paint to this but, the last two days were nope. Its been really hot here as well so, this is where I stopped. 

I diecut the painted layer with an Hero Arts rectangle die and then glued it crooked to a printed paper (green) from a Carta Bella (home again pad) and then used an xacto knife to straighten that out a little so, I roughed up the edges. The sentiment here is from the Clearly Besotted Sweetest Sentiments set and I used some Versafine ink for that and even as hot as it is it, did not dry so, I hit that with a heat gun after blotting it a few times and getting ink transfers. I am telling you I am impressed I remembered to do this, I cannot tell you how many things I have painted on this paper, added a sentiment thought it was dry, die cut it and smeared that ink all over the cutting plates.. The base here is some PTI vintage cream 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 SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Style Motivation}

 Happy Independence Day People! Tonight Julie is linking us up to the Style Motivation site and I found it easier to look at the photos on their pinterest boards. But, a lot of their boards are group boards so, the pins are on them from random people. And I stumbled across this pin on the weddings board of these tins with scrabble tile words in them. And I thought oh, that would be cool as a tag. 

I have a few old jars filled with scrabble tiles in my space and you know its Love if I give up a J as there is only one in each box. So, that being said I really do not have many J's here ( I found 2 in two of these jars) so.. I just may keep this tag and add a small tag with Hubs name to the Yarn/Hemp string in the hole. That wide edge eyelet is a new thing I found on Amazon not too long ago and I used my crop o dile on it, and it did not work well on the back side so, I did whack this (a bunch) with a hammer and a setter and it did not make a difference in smoothing out the metal) so, that was the reason I chose yarn to go through that hole. I am thinking lace would have just snagged. The jingle Bells I've had some time now and I don't remember the MFG info on them. But, that base was cut with a tag die from Mama Elephant ( retired) its A2 in real life and the plaid ( Tim Holtz old Christmas paper was just eyeballed on the paper trimmer to make it fit inside the stitched detailing of the diecut. The label is an Gina K Designs stamp ( very old ) heat embossed with white powder on some Cherry Cobbler cardstock and cut with a spellbinders die. Those tiles are on the diecut layer with "craft" glue dots. ( the big ones) And that's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you find yourself with free time to play along with us you can find this challenge here and Everyone is so excited the behind the scene's team of IT people at SCS were able to get the galleries up and visible again today after the big update recently. 
 

Watercoloring Magnolias with Push & Pull accents

 This week Kia is sharing a video from Debbie Walker Art seen here on YouTube where she shows some glazing over a previously painted Magnolia branch using the tip of a round brush in a push and pull motion. So after I watched that video I hunted down this other video of hers that I think is the how she did the Magnolia's used in this weeks tutorial. So, I did start this with my (not so great paper) notebook that is small and I used a small brush to try the strokes here.

 My thought with this was, its a smaller piece of paper use a smaller brush. ( that was hard, its like making it harder on yourself to use not so great paper and not do what you just seen.) So, I left this to dry and then tried it on (better Cotton ) paper in an A7 size. 

 And my hand had a mind of its own and my branch became a bush peeking into the scene from the bottom. I don't have the color she used so I just messed around with some colors I have and made them various shades ( those petals) 

 What It looked like this morning, with a little extra added on and then when I came home from work it looked like (below)

 Which was encouraging so, I picked up the first trial and added another layer to the top of that branch.

 And some sprinkles of splatters. I prefer the one that is larger done on the better paper in all reality this is a not so bad trial. I did date these after I shot the last two photos and called it "good enough". I have always had a Magnolia bush on my mental garden wish list and this is something Hubs is very aware of that he will be planting for me when we do a forever home. ( preferably where it does not snow) and so, the color choice of these is I don't know, but the ones I have seen in person were either white or very pale pink/mauve so, I like the idea of these but, I the petals I remember seeing were shaped more like little scoops so, I cam curious about what other ones may be possible for my someday garden. 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.

 

July Dirty Dozen Christmas Sample

 It's the beginning of July and I am back with a quick little Christmas card that was jump started by this months Photo inspiration for the Dirty Dozen Christmas cards prompt. ( seen here in the special forums for Fan Club members of SCS) 

I started by digging out this pad of woodgrain prints from Crafters Consortium and I pulled out one white sheet and this blue sheet. and started pushing around the red Merry diecut stack ( that was on the table) and When I went looking in the drawer for some trees I may have done in the past I found these that had been cut from the sheet music print and so, the one closer to the center is up on foam pop dots. That bitty red house is a Memory Box diecut Probably from one of the village sets. I have this tiny milk glass tray on the table that has tiny die cuts and sentiments stamped on tags and such in it. So the Impression Obsession word dies came out of there. I had thought to tie on the charm but, I didn't think of it until the glue had dried under the Y so, I ended up tying the hemp string into a bow and just laying it on top of the swirls. The lace here is vintage and the tiny star circle is a die cut from a K & Co. package of misc. Patriotic things that is in a bin on the table. I never got around to using any of this but, this tiny circle piece. This is A6 in real life and the base is some Papertrey Ink white. That's about it from me, I will be back later tonight with a sample for this weeks Watercoloring challenge as well. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Watercoloring Sketchbook Backgrounds

 It's my turn to host the Watercoloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week and I happened across a new to me artist (My Nature Diaries) on YouTube not too long ago where she shared background ideas in watercolor in a garden sketchbook. With this video seen here. I also had received this watercolor book for Mother's Day this year from my son so, I thought win win. Along with some handmade textured papers. 

 This does say it is 100% cotton paper and I thought why not. One thing that I really liked about her page she shared was the fact that there was also stamps and journaling mixed in with the sketched painted parts. I mainly started water coloring because, I wanted to be able to color my stamped images better or easier. and Of all the coloring mediums I have tried over the years, pencils are still high the list but, Water coloring is edging it out for the easiest one to do in a quick thing I guess. It takes a long time to build layers of color with pencils and I did not find markers to be an easy thing for me so, the water coloring even with the drying times seems faster I guess than pencils.  

So I opened it up to page two (back side of page 1) and decided to add some of this palette from Prima called Terrain ( which was also probably a gift a year or two ago ish?) and Then I clipped the other side and started a layer on it as well.

 I did add some blues to the greens thinking it would be "Sky" space, Although even in the back of my mind I was thinking I was not going to sketch anything I was either going to stamp some images that would be sketch style or wing it with a paint brush. (my book & no rules) 

 What it looked like the next morning dry.

This book pages are on the A7 size so, I dug out my scrapbooking size Misti to add this SU sketched Monarch Butterflies stamp to it, thinking I could restamp the image as needed but, this was I did not press to hard since it was not opened say in the middle of the book, I did not want to break the lid of my Misti so, it did not stamp perfectly in the center of the stamp but, I felt like it was "fix-able" with paint.

 

So I added some lunar black to the butterflies and other paints, along with some white gouache straight out of the tube ( which is another layer of texture) and then I decided to stamp this Penny Black (heart shaped leaves sprig) with some DOX iced spruce ink in the corner.

I did add some paints over the top of those leaves as they did not stamp perfectly either on the textured paper and then added in some stray grass lines and some splatters to the spaces where there were grass here. and so far, this is what it looks like. I do not get monarch butterflies in my yard and I did consider thinking about sketching some kind of a big leaf somewhere here and then adding more butterflies but, I am not really making a garden journal out of this, its more like a play book that may turn out a little better than the other books I have going on with not cotton paper that you know is something to flip back through later to see the ideas of how things worked or turned out I guess. I am debating if I want to paint in something with some Masking fluid as that was another of the ideas shown and so far I am still thinking about it. 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. 
 

 On Wednesday AM I added some pencil lines for journaling with a water soluble pencil and then scratched on a thought I had about Milkweed Plants and Butterflies with a nib and some India Ink. what I don't know at this point is if I were to paint over those words if they will smear. I probably should have done some painting over there before the words but, such is life.