Watercoloring Snowmen

 This week Kia is sharing this video which shows painting two slightly different snowman watercolors at the same time that you can see here on YouTube by Ellen Crimi-Trent. The name of that video is how to paint watercolor snowmen greeting cards/watercolor Christmas cards. 

It starts with sketch a couple one maybe more like a close up selfie type view and the other with a little more background and a house on the hill.

So I cut the Arches cold press watercolor paper to 4 1/2" square with the thought of using them on 5 1/2" square cards when finished. or tags. I had not decided that exactly at this point, and I had totally been thinking about decorating for Christmas and in my head I was thinking salt box type house for the house. (and I sketched it flat) 

I am right handed so, instead of starting to paint on the right panel I started with the left so that I would not be dragging my hand / sleeve through the paint. I also seen I still had some paint on a small pallet that was used to do that two colors landscape I hosted a while back so, I used that paint rather than doing what ever colors she used. ( these are also granulating colors) Sodalite Genuine And Transparent Red Oxide are the main colors here. I did use some Paynes grey blue for some darker color on the eyes and then some sepia or the branches.

So, my colors are also a little reversed from what she had shown doing her closer snowman with more browns and the other one as more blues but, I figured it really didn't matter that much. and at this point I knew that house sketch was not going to work.

When the backgrounds were (mostly) dry. It's been incredibly cold here the last week or so and paint is drying very slowly. I did go in and add paint to the snowmen themselves. one of my favorite parts of the video was watching her add the shadows. ( esp. the carrot shadows as it was done over the top of the face and I was tickled to see mine worked and I did not make mud on their faces) 

a little more paint was added and I converted my "house" to a bit pine tree.

I did windsor & newton white gouache for my falling snow. and it looked ok while wet but, dried to nothing.

So I added another round of Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white over the top of the Gouache for snowfall and it helped but, it was still pretty subtle. pulled off the tape and seen this pad of wood grain paper off to the side ( my table is a heaping mess right now) and pulled papers for both cards from that pad. 

The let it snow here is from the waffle flower cozy sentiments set done in Versafine clair Nocturn ink. the one on the right I stamped it on a scrap of thin brown paper and then cut that one with a Spellbinders deckle rectangle die. The lace is vintage and the ribbon is maybe May Arts? (I've had it for years) 

This one the base is 5 1/2" square Neenah solar white 

This one is also same size with a kraft base. That's about it from me, I hope you all are doing well. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. thanks for stopping by.

December Dirty Dozen Christmas

 I can not hardly believe it is already December. I have to laugh at my self as even just a couple of years ago I thought time moved quickly. It's sped up again for me. At any rate the very last prompt for playing along with the Dirty Dozen and creating for Christmas is up here in the forums for Fan Club members at Splitcoaststampers and I ended up going this away for my sample. 

I ended up stamping this Santa Hat (from The Stamp Pad) on some Artist loft watercolor paper and painting it with Daniel Smith and Windsor & Newton (red) paints. When that was dry I cut the watercolor paper with an Honeybee stamps deckle square die and inked the edges with some DOX vintage photo ink as it was a similar color as the crackle in this paper I found in an Craft Consortium Test of time pad. Lately I have been trying really hard to not pay package type postage costs for my cards, so. I have been keeping them at 5 1/2" square and fairly flat so they will slid through that slot at the post office. with that in mind. I did just cut off two snips of this ribbon and wrapped it around the printed paper layer and just under the edges of the painted layer so, there is not ribbon twice across the whole bottom of the card. the corner of the sentiment panel (Stamp is from the Taylored Expressions Santa stop here set) and cut with an old Spellbinders mega deckle rect. die I just folded my glue dot in that bottom right corner in half as that edge was up slightly because of the ribbon above it instead of you know putting foam pop dots under the whole thing. 

I did go over the berries with a white gel pen ( which was not very visible with all the rest of the white) and a bronze sparkle paint on the jingle bells ( again not much shimmer as there is also a lot of brown on this card) so, I decided to add some Nuvo Crystal glaze in those areas. It is still pretty subtle even in real life.  That's about it from me, Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {the tin bin}

  Hello & Welcome, It's my turn to host the Inspiration challenge as there are 5 Saturdays this month in November and I am traveling today So, the ladies on the team are keeping an eye on things until I am online again. I knew I wanted to do something simple as it was just a busy week and that is just going to continue through the end of the year now right? Their store front can be found here. And their pinterest boards can be seen here. I seen this red house Ornament here in the thread at Splitcoaststampers. ( its the last photo in the thread) and I will have the links up and working after I return. And I loved that and started poking around in my birdhouse stamps. And I was like no no no, and I thought of these bitty almost salt box styled houses from the really old Memory Box village dies set and I had this Penny Black Immense Enjoy die sitting on the table along with this Christmas paper from Kaiser Craft and I thought, I really like this combo, The red texture paper here I think is from Hobby Lobby. ( its not marked the piece I cut) 

And I really liked the colors and thought they went with the primitive vibe of that house. I probably should have tucked in a bitty tree but, I really liked the browns, creams and red combo and I left it off.  seeing two of the homes would fit in the open space of the O here I decided to go with a from our home sentiment and of course I stamped it directly on that printed wood grain. crooked. yes, you knew that was coming right? So, I re-stamped it on a scrap of kraft cardstock and die cut it twice with an Impression Obsession die from the deckled set. I did cut it twice to get it trimmed down on the ends to be more closer to the edges of the stamping. The edges of that piece were inked with some DOX vintage photo ink. And that was about it but, I decided it needed a little more contrast and used a scrap of the red texture for a mat. This one is A7 in real life. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & enjoying this long weekend if your in the states. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring a Gingerbread House

 Hi, & Welcome, It's my turn to host the watercoloring challenge this week and so I had chosen this video of a gingerbread home a few months ago thinking to do quick little tags before baking season started. and with that in mind I was mostly curious about the color combo because, Blue is not something I reach for or think of with Gingers. This video is from Watercolor Relaxation & Coloring ideas and can be found here on YouTube. One thing about it, she does use Windsor & Newton paints and I have Daniel Smith so, I just winged it by doing the snow/frosting pale purple and the blues and browns and reds are different.

I started with the sketch on some Artist Loft (cheap) watercolor paper.

and yes, sketching is not my thing at this point I was ready to dig out a stamp ha ha. but, I kept going.

First layers of brown I did let this dry before I continued.

Second layer of paints. 

I did think it was interesting to watch her do her shadows. It was not anything I have not seen before but, I was impressed with the whole rubbing out the harsh lines she did do.

now once I started adding blue for the sky was when I started to get some pretty hard lines so, I kept adding more water and paint to this trying for that bold color.

Started adding candies to the frosted areas and blurring that thinking its supposed to be the candies would bleed into the frosting right? 

I was almost happy with the depth of color by this time but, I could see the lines while it was wet so, I did right after this add more.

And the more I Looked at it, the more I thought it would be very easy to keep adding paint all week to this. So, I stopped. I did not add the white gel pen or the acrylic paint to the door frame.

When the paint was dry I die cut that panel with the Mama Elephant deckled edge frame die, put foam tape under it and then cut this joy typewriter sentiment (Simon says stamp) from a scrap of red cardstock to add on. The base here is a pre made one A2 and I am guessing its a very old Tim Holtz one. ( mine are all in a drawer together mostly with no packaging. I am trying to use them up. So, 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 {World Market}

 This week Amy is sharing the World Market site & pinterest boards and I happened across this window scene pin. And I kept coming back to it. So, I decided to dig out the first window die I ever bought the Poppy Stamps Grand Madison window die and cut it from some artist loft watercolor paper. Taped up the backside with scotch tape so it could be painted. 

It struck me that there was a lot of Brown in that pin so, I started with a wash of some as the first layer on the frame.

So, I you know did this based on what I thought I remembered. and my brain was stuck on mostly woody wreath with round leaves with blue ish undertones. And I decided that I could change the ribbon hanger into a bow. 

And at that point I decided the glass panes should have some color. so, I gave that a wash of very light blue.

 

and I let it sit at this point I decided to go back to look at the wreath again and I realized there was "pine sprigs" in there also, So. I did add some flicks of another shade of green to be "pine" added a little more red to the bow. I had received some happy mail from Red Lead paperworks earlier in the week and stamped off some of these sentiments from the Christmas Circle words set on scraps so, I had those in my line of site was the paint was drying and I did cut one of the Noel's with a Hero Arts circle die and then inked the edges with some DOX vintage photo ink because, brown. :) I knew the edges of the pin were maybe the sides of the house or door frame something, but I decided that I didn't want to paint the rest of it and just started flipping through some printed paper and I liked the colors of this winter village scene from the Hobby Lobby vintage Christmas pad and that sent everything to more greens than browns. 

The green base here was cut to A7 and that's about it. I am not so sure this paper and colors work with this window and I am very tempted to pull it apart and make a more clean and simple version card but, at the moment this is where I stopped. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a Simple snowy bird scene

 This week Linda is sharing this video seen here on YouTube to do a winter scene with a bird on a branch, and she uses a piece of yarn to get the frosty looking branch effect. I have not crochet with yarn in a lot of years but, I have a tiny stash of fancy fibers to tie on gift tags and found a piece of chenille. ( it did not work by the way) so, if you have some yarn maybe try a different one.

I started by cutting a piece of Arches cold press with the largest die in the Mama Elephant Deckled edge frames set and using Indigo & black as a color wash for the background, got the chenille damp, sprinkle don salt, layered a little more water on the string and walked away. ( it's been snowing off and on here the last few days and so, the drying time is in the hours and hours stage. 

When I removed the chenille I had this. So, there was no damp under where it was I may have waited too long to pull it up. I did let this sit overnight and all day while I was at work today.

So, I grabbed a damp brush and tried to make a line of where I thought the string was originally for a branch, added a hint of brown to that and then did the bird based on what I remembered from watching the video a few days ago, My bird sketch I did make a letter D with a bump for the head but, the space for the tail I had painted over so, I did spend a bunch of time adding brown paint to the tail area.

After adding more paint to the bird I decided to splatter the whole thing with some Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white. and then (this is not in this shot) I did drag the brush along the outside of the stitched line on the diecut to take away some of the sky color washed background there. I am not so sure that was any success as of yet but, I did try that. 

 After that dried I did use a piece of textured Bazzill for a mat and then roughed up the edges of that. dug around in my blue ribbons box and found another piece of yard that came from "Fibers by the yard" a long time ago, wrapped it where the painted branch was supposed to be and its mostly floating there with a couple of micro glue dots in a couple of spots. I decided to use an premade card base of Strathmore watercolor paper in an A7 and used it for the base. And I have not decided on the sentiment as of yet so right now this is where I stopped with this one. if you'd like to play along with us, you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by.