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. 

 

 

 

Watering can

 This week the clean and simple challenge is to CASE one of your own cards, so when I see that kind of a challenge I tend to look at older uploads and I came across a couple that I had posted using this Stampin' Up! long time friend image that had been gifted to me before I bought the set. I used to trade stamped images of old sets and see if I could color them well enough to buy them. Some sets are harder to color than others because of scale or what ever. And so, I dug mine out and stamped it with some Simon Says Stamp Barely Beige ink on Arches cold press watercolor paper. I probably should have used hot press because it's smoother but, I like the texture of cold press so, I just went with it.

And I gave it a first layer of paint after dark yesterday and walked away.

 

So this afternoon I started adding more paint over the top of it. trying for some depth.

I did add more paint after this was shot as well but, its a dark and rainy day here so the colors are not coming through very well. I did try for a rusty and patina type aged colors on the watering can and it looks better to me in person. 

 

I am not so sure using the colors behind the panel keeps it "clean" but, it is fairly simple and flat so, that was my main goals here. I decided to us a Sentiment from the Art Impressions little things sentiment set with some Pinecone Versafine ink directly on the watercolor paper. That purple wood grain print is from a Mintay Papers Lavender farm pad trimmed down to just under 5 1/2" square and the base here is some Coordinations Lettuce textured cardstock. That's about it from me, I wish the blues on the can showed up better but, I am pretty tickled with how this looks in real life. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by { Kibak Tile}

 This week Denise is sharing the Kibak Tile site and their Pinterest boards and no matter what I looked at this shower design pin kept catching my eye. Green's my favorite color so that makes sense. 

So I knew I had background stamps of square type designs and I started out looking for those and realized most had Postage type dividers so, I found this really old Hero Arts background and stamped it with some Speckled Egg Distress oxide ink on Neenah solar white and thought OK. It's not really big but, it was Big Enough was the thought so The Stampin' Up  Artfully Asian flowering branch stamp would fit across it. I did cut out the background with scissors and then color dusted some of the same DOX on the cut edges getting rid of the white spaces. The branch was over stamped across this with some Versafine Clair Sand dune ink and then I used a white gel pen in all the open spaces leaves, berries & flower petals. 

 I had a piece of Sage Shadow cardstock that was A2 card size so, I scored it and then decided it needed more squares behind the stamped panel as it was just too plain so, I ran the top of the card through the big shot with an Cuttlebug Gingham folder. the scale of the squares is smaller but, I thought the texture worked. The sentiment is from Impression Obsession and I had stamped it on this scrap of green from earlier in the week thinking about using it with those sweet peas but, discarded it and then as I was gluing these pieces I thought. why not. So, I also added some white opal liquid pearls to the berries and centers of the blooms here. pretty easy all in all and I do like it. I have been debating about adding some kind of a shadow under the branch but, the inks and glue are still wet as this was shot so, its one of those maybe things to ponder at this point. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here to play along with us at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Watercoloring April SweetPeas

 This week Suz is sharing this video of April's birth month flower Sweet Peas by Emma Jane Lefebvre seen here on YouTube. 

So, I watched the video and then just started painting mine on some Arches cold press watercolor paper with Daniel Smith paints. I did walk away and let the layers dry but, I think I may have done them slightly out of the order she did the video but, I think I ended up with the gist of it in the end.

 First layers of petals with an water soluble pencil stem line.

 I was by this point pretty impressed with this one as it was going along. It usually takes me lots of layers to think something is going OK. 

I did add some shadows to the climbing vine part of the stem and lines to the leaves after this as well.

 

I thought for sure I had a "sweetpea" stamp but, so far I have not found it as of yet. and I am thinking it was in one of those old Stampin' Up sets with lots of sentiments in it. And in the mean time I used a Penny Black elegant frame die to cut the watercolor paper and the mat under it. That green is some really old Close to my Heart that had the white core and was pretty thin? so, I don't remember its color name anymore but, I ran the top cover of the card through the big shot inside an Penny Black embossing folder. This one is 5 1/2" square 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 to play along. Thanks for stopping by.