Watercoloring simple Hearts

 It's my turn to host the water coloring challenge tutorial at Splitcoaststampers this week and I had chosen this video seen here on YouTube by Leisel's Artistic studio last month thinking that perhaps it would work well for people who are looking for quick last minute Valentine ideas. So I started with some smaller scrap pieces of Arches Cold press. I did not use a stencil to draw the hearts just winged it with a paint brush.

 I walked away at this point and let this dry.

 I knew I had this piece too close to the edges and felt like that made it a good one to practice the leafy wreath feeling petals on it. 

In the back of my head I knew there was some where in that video an angled brush used for something maybe the leaves maybe the rose buds, so while the heart was drying I grabbed some non round brushes and a scrap of Neenah and just played at making leaves with brushes I have.

So, I was not getting things that looked like rose buds and I tried one more brush seen below.

 

And I decided the people I am making cards for, I'd rather have leafy wreath looking hearts more than floral framed ones so. I tossed this scrap. washed those brushes and ordered a couple of small angle brushes off Amazon. They are supposed to arrive on Tuesday so, I may or may have time to try them out before this goes live. 

My favorite shape of hearts lean a little more to the primitive side so, I started a long tall wreath on this scrap.

 I die cut the roundish heart with a square stitched die from Simon Says Stamp and the long tall heart with an Crealies X-stitched rectangle die. Those words were cut last month when the Newton's Nook Valentine word trio dies landed in my mail box. I had cut some from the Maja Prints paper with tiny hearts on it and some from watercolor papers. I fished these pre-made sparkly red A2 card bases out of the drawer and then decided I will use the XOXO block on the roundish heart and added some stickles crystal glitter glue on it for more sparkle.

The card on the left I finished it with a sentiment from the Taylored Expressions Love everywhere set and cut it with an Waffle flower A7 rectangle die. The XO diecut sentiment block on the card on the right is up on foam pop dots and has some depth from that. 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 {Nicebai}

 Hello, it's been a long while. I know, I have been Well, there's no nice way to say it but, my Mama passed away last month the morning after her 75th birthday. So, the grief comes in waves between the rounds of doing what needs to be done. And so the travel time also factors in there. This is the first thing I have tried to create since then. Kia is sharing this Nicebai store online that also has an Pinterest boards seen here. I came across this shirt with the Vintage printed cowboys. And my first thought was, I think I have paper like that. And I fished out this old "wanted" pad from Cosmo Cricket and I found this paper that had the colors right but, no cowboys on it haha. I trimmed it down to 5 1/2" square. So, I pulled out the Wild Wild West stamps from Stampin' Up! and stamped this cowboy herding that cow directly on the paper and added some watercolor paints over it.

 That didn't really go well, the ink beaded up on the paper and so did the paints. So, I grabbed a piece of Arches cold press watercolor and stamped it again and started adding just a little bit of paint to it. I did end up adding a few more shadows this morning after we got home from the round of grocery shopping and cut that out with a Memory Box stitched rectangle die and just layered it over the directly stamped image. I found this sentiment stamped and diecut in the little milk glass tray on the table and my mind is completely blank as to who made it an such.

The base on this is some really old as well SU creamy Carmel cut to 5 1/2" square. I am probably going to pop it in the mail for my step dad as one of his favorite things to watch are the old cowboy movies and shows like gunsmoke. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. That's about it from me, I hope you all are doing well. Thanks for stopping by.
 

 

Watercoloring Snowing Bokeh

 This week Brenda is sharing this video seen here on YouTube by Creative Lass called Winter Watercolor Bokeh. I did watch it then just started painting from what I remembered. I did gather some round things I thought would work for the bokeh spots.

The pink thing I think is for makeup and the largest sponge has a wooden handle from CTMH. the little circle is a finger dauber ( which worked the best of all of them) and then a cheap qtip. the thing I found with q-tips is when the paint dries on it, it no longer absorbs paint from the next go round. 

This was done using those same paints on the palette from last time and there was quite a bit of green on it and so my sky is not so much fun colors as what was shown and I am OK with that. I did get some fuzzy frosty branches in this round but, I buried them in later layers of paints. 

I started thinking as I was doing this that the sky was just not dark enough and my branches started looking like bushes more than trees. 

This is when I started adding in the White Gouache. ( W&N ) and this was damp so I knew they would bleed and blend and I figured it would just add to the depth of the scene.

more branches, more paint, I did go over that sky again with another layer and I did the whole sky so I would not have hard lines so, it did you know overwrite some of the cool things like the fuzzy branches and such.

More branches, more splatters. I started thinking I have entirely too many branches and then I added even more. ha ha.

 This waffle flower stamp set (Cozy Holiday sentiments) was still on the edge of the table waiting to be put away and since I like the font and the scale out it came again. this is some Versafine Clair Nocturn. and I did let this sit for 24 hours at this point before I mounted it to the bazzill card base.

 This card is A6 in real life and completely flat. I had pressed the watercolor paper inside my big shot trying to take some of the warp out of it and that ink had not dried. it transferred to the plastic cutting layer and so, haha seeing the photograph this morning tells me I must have spun it as I can see the font in the under the branches. so, the sandpaper eraser will come out later and I can see if it is save able. 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 Salted Forest

 This week it's my turn to pick the learning video for the watercolor challenge at Splitcoaststampers. And I have chosen this one from Kristin Van Leuven. This video is 25 minutes long and the beginning of it talks about how to do salted backgrounds and things to try. ( less water, more water, more pigments etc) I have read in the past that this is something some people struggle with so, I thought this was cool that she shows how it works before showing the painting jump start idea. 

So, I did do the top two thirds of this (just slightly under A7 size) piece of Cold Press Arches cotton watercolor paper. I did use Daniel Smith paints and table salt as that was what I had handy.

When it was dry and the salt was removed there was not nearly the definition for the trees as in the learning video and If I were doing it again I would use more pigments to the paint and try the rock salt. But, I decided to just use it as it was.

Started adding some branches and tree trunks to the scene.

More branches added and a few shadows to the area that would be bushes.

Added in a few rocks and some water/ice covered pond to the bottom.

I added some soil, more shadows.

More shadows and some fir / pine trees to the edges of the scene.

I actually picked up a new tube of Windsor & Newton White Gouache and so, I did apply the "snow" here with using the brush directly in the tube. I am not so sure it made much of a difference and I eventually added some to the palette where I normally have that color. I added a few more shadows to the fir trees also.

This was finished with a grey/blue-ish piece of smooth cardstock ( that started out at 12" square but, I don't remember its color name or MFG info anymore) The thing I really notice about this is how much the camera shots differ in color from the cell phone shots. Also, I think my snow was more visible while it was wet than now while it's dry so, I am debating adding more snow to the tops of the first layer of it here. And I decided the happy birthday will go on the inside. 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 {Lifestyle for Real Life}

 This week Julie is sharing the Lifestyle for real life blog and collection of pinterest boards.  And I did some poking around in both sites and stopped at this star shaped mint ornament. I did not click on it to see how they melted the candies into the star shape I just knew I had both stars and candy canes and mints I could play off that theme with. (a whole bunch of her boards are group boards so multiple people are pinning to them) And I cannot remember which board that came off of but, that is why the name is not her name when you click on it.

So I stamped this Inky Antics Buttermilk Basin crock of candy canes and starry pine sprigs stamp with some Versafine Morning Mist on Artist loft watercolor paper and started adding some paint to it.

 Once the paint layers were dry ( there are two or three here I forget) I did add some white gel pen to the "white" areas of the candy canes and some sparkle gel pen to the edges of the stars. I did die cut this with two dies from the Creative Expressions stitched weave frame dies & inked the edges of that with some Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink.The Joy here is from Stampin' Up! Small Script set & done with Versafine Nocturn. The printed paper is a double sided one from Maja Designs Woodland Christmas set. The base is Stampin Up riding hood red & this is A2 & Flat (yay me) in real life. Thats 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.