Watercoloring Quick Tags

 Hi, It's my turn to host the water coloring challenge tutorial at Splitcoaststampers this week and I came across this video from Kristen Van Leuven called quick & easy watercolor holiday gift tags - 10 ideas for gifting watercolor here on YouTube.

So, I opened the drawer where I have some cut pieces of cardstock and pulled out a piece that is big enough for a small card and used some Ellen Hutson Modern tag dies on it to get 3 tag shapes.

 

And I happened to remember the simple pine branch idea best so, I started with that. I did have the idea that starting with the paper already cut to a tag size would help with finding space for the painting and leaving some white space. 

I did start adding darker values to the needles and some browns for a branch.

 

And more paints and such, this was all the pieces I did cut from that piece of Arches cold press wc paper.

I remembered there was an almost Charlie brown blanket wrapped tree idea and so, I started one of those for the second tag.

 

And I decided to do a long skinny branch on the long tag as well. 

 The Oh Joy sentiment was stamped on scraps a few weeks ago and cut out with Tim Holtz Labels die ( ovals) and or an Art Impressions (banner) die. the red burlap string is from an May Arts roll and I did leave off the hole re-inforcers I had cut. I Also ended up adding a few spots of White Gouache snow to the little tree tag. That's about it from me, these went together really quickly. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring Abstract Christmas foliage

 This week Kia is sharing this video seen here on doing some Abstract either Holly Branch of Poinsettia floral clump paintings by Ellen Crimi-Trent called EASY watercolor Christmas Cards - Loose Abstract Christmas Floral. I started with a piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper and just free-hand painted the first layer of Holly Branch.

And as soon as I got this layer on I decided the leaves were entirely too small of a scale with those berries at this size. 

 

And So, I went right over the top of it with more berries and bigger leaves.

 And then I proceeded to wash the paint off again.

 Added more paint and washed it off again, it was not really getting dreamy looking more of a hot mess but, I kept going.

 Remembered the add some yellow into the mess and did that.

Decided to add some splatters. 

 

Dug out a Square tag die from My Creative Time ( this is the largest straight edge die in that set) and played with where to tape it to cut it down.

 Cut it out, added a Reverse Confetti Sentiment that had been stamped and diecut previously and some May Arts Burlap String. And then decided to add some gold metallic paint dots.

I do like it better like this cut down and covered a little by that big sentiment. I am planning to do the floral one as well but, so far this is as far as I have gotten. I did ink both the edges of the round sentiment panel and the tag with some DOX scorched timber ink. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

DIrty Dozen November

 We are now into the height of Quick you need how many Christmas cards to mail out yet season? And so, I decided that I would do something I thought would be quick and easy and possibly a proto-type to do maybe a few more of these slightly different. This one was jump started by the Inspiration shot seen here in the special forums for Fan Club Members here. 

 

I started out with Cutting the lanterns from the Penny Black Winter Lantern set from Artist Loft watercolor paper and used some Daniel Smith watercolors on them. I love lanterns and none of mine are this fancy with metal tops but, I loved the colors in the shot so, I tried to do that. 

I had received this new from Simon Says Stamp Twisted Branch die in the mail last week and I thought it mimicked the delicate look the foliage had in the shot so, I cut one of those from wc paper as well. I did have the idea that I wanted this flush on the right hand side of the card base and the tiny branch in the lower right hand corner I cut off with scissors.

Added more colors to the branches and let it dry.

 

After I started gluing the bits and pieces to the card front I decided to cut another branch from the lower right end of the diecut and added paint to it, and then when I glued it onto the card front I angled it a little more up and vertical so it would not over hand the side of the card front. I was able to pull up and bend some of the leaves and berries on the larger piece so that it did not block the stamped sentiment ( Riley & Co. Karen Burniston Christmas Wishes set) and then the "Merry Christmas ended up going on the inside.

 Because, this is an A2 sized card and I ran out of room. After this was glued together I had added more paint to the branches and the tops of the lanterns as well. I am thinking I really like the idea of this and I just may try it again as a landscape still life. That's about it from me, I hope you're doing well. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring a Fall Background

 This week Brenda is sharing this video tutorial seen here on YouTube  called ridiculously easy Watercolor Autumn Leaves by Creative Lass doing a quick little fall background with some branches peeking in.

 I had a piece of A6 sized Artist loft watercolor paper on the table so, that is what I used. It's taped to an old piece of chipboard and I did sprinkle some table salt in the darker areas to set aside to dry.

What it looked like dry with the salt removed. You can't really see any salt blooms evidently I did not use a dark enough shades of color in that background. So, I just kept going. 
 

Yes I used all but the tiny brush in this shot for this simple painting haha.

 I decided after the leaves went on to add a few splatters. I did skip the find a stencil and use a magic eraser to make shadow lifted leaves into the background ( maybe next time) I would have to find my leaf dies and cut them from something to create some leaf stencils. I don't like cleaning stencils so, I do not own that many of them compared to say stamps or dies.

 The difference between a cell phone mug shot and a camera one on a sun shine day. I really like how this turned out and may do some more of them. I did lose some of the paper edges when I took off the masking tape ( delicate surface tape ha ha) The sentiment here is one from Red Lead and it was stamped on some textured Maja designs printed paper. I did cut this with scissors and inked the edges with some DOX vintage photo ink. The base here is a textured whitewashed one from Coredinations and Its A6 in real life. That's about it from me. I hope you're doing well & thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. 

 

Watercoloring an Autumn Forest

 It's my turn to host the water coloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week. I came across a new to me artist named Hannah M. P. who has this video (seen here on YouTube) called paint a vibrant autumn forest with me. I loved the perspective of the title photo of the video and thought it might be interesting to try. 

I started with an Piece of Arches cold press wc paper cut to A6 and taped to an old piece of chipboard.

 I did wet the paper with an size 12 brush, 

And I used that same brush to do some blue cloudy sky for the background, proceeded to mix up some Autumn foliage paint colors and then 

I and thought she said it was a wet on wet thing... and I do not remember her saying to let that blue dry, but I knew better looking at her paint and tried it wet anyways... the yellow went Woosh haha...So, I did let that sky dry. 

 

So I added some random cone shaped treed pointing towards the center and then started adding trunks.

And then I walked away and let this dry because, in my head I was trying to remember what the branches would do. If they were say Aspen trees the branches would go kind of up and straight towards the trunks I was thinking so, I let this sit until this morning and then just added a few branches before work.

 

So, this is what I came home to this afternoon. Today is our 36th wedding anniversary and these challenges tend to go live at Dinner time in my time zone so, part of my brain is thinking maybe it needs some bare branches in here and is there enough time for it to dry from that and be "finished" ( not sure, its been pretty chilly here so) and the other part of my brain is thinking... maybe I can get someone to load the challenge for me if we end up going out to dinner. ( it is an unknown thing right this minute) depends on how the day goes kind of a thing. I have come home before hubs with another head ache. ( I think its the new glasses) and the whole "oooh Shinny" squirrel part of my brain has distracted me again. 

I am not so sure what I want to do with this, so I ended up mounting it to just some textured rusty orange textured Bazzill ( A6 ) and left if flat and no greeting to cover the painting. I think this turned out well and I am glad I tried it. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Watercoloring a White Pumpkin

 This week Kia is sharing this video from Emma Jane Lefebvre called No fail watercolor pumpkins seen here on YouTube. I did watch the whole video and my brain retained the I love the "white" one and the bumpy edges parts the best so, that is where I started and I liked it so well that I just made it into a simple fall card.

 I did mix my "white" as very diluted black with a touch of van dyck brown. and then later I added in some greens got it "too green" and wiped some of that off with a damp brush. and I just decided to stop before I totally overworked it. I think I will be doing more of these "white" pumpkins soon, maybe a little larger. this was done with an Size 8 Brush on some Arches watercolor paper. (the back side of a failed piece) 

 because this is so small it did not take long to dry so I trimmed it down with an Tattered Lace Antique lace essential rectangle die and put foam tape under it. the ribbon wrapped around the end is stitched and has some bulk to it so, the tiny lili of the valley sentiment tag is just tied on that with some natural hemp string. I cut that out with scissors and used a bit of watercolor paint on the acorns on it. It was stamped on a scrap of SU soft seafoam cardstock. I recently received this pack of Brutus Monroe "Ever After" lace printed papers pack and I thought the colors of this one played well with my not really white pumpkin. The base here is some columns grey Neenah and its A6 in real life. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Terrain}

 This week Amy is sharing the Terrain site and They also have pinterest boards seen here. I seen so much eye candy... but, seeing as this is the first week of fall ( My Favorite Season) I found my self keep coming back to these leafy paper placemats. I loved the colors. So, I dug out these Tim Holtz Sizzix leaf dies and cut some from watercolor paper.

 So I started cleaning off a palette from previously with some warm toned paints on it. and let them dry.

 more paints added and left to dry.

 I had originally thought I could pile on all the leaves but, it ended up being just too cluttered for this stark white base to me so, I just kept two of them and the one on the top is up on slight foam pop dots. The sentiment here is from the Tim Holtz tiny text Christmas with some versafine here directly on the base. letting it be more Clean and Simple I guess. That's about it from me, if you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.  

Watercoloring Leaves

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube  By Kristin Van Leuven called "Painting watercolor fall leaves using my favorite trick" that I think the thing she most wants to share is how she uses her brush on the veins of the leaves. Or mixing the paints. I was not really sure & So, I will have some long days at work this week and I decided to try doing this with a limited supply of paint color choices That I had left at work a long time ago. Knowing I would not be home early to try this on tuesday afternoon. I did not have time to paint like normal over the weekend. So, I tossed this sketchbook in my bag this morning and ran out the door.  I did use the first page for mixing some  fall-ish colors. I did not mix the same colors she did and I did not have a pencil in my office at work. Seriously who knew? I used to use pencils all the time so that took me by surprise and I decided to just wing painting some leaves.

 Used the shades listed under the paint samples in the sketch book to get those shades and then started on the first leaf. This was jump started by the purple tipped on on her top right corner. 

 Tried a few more shapes of leaves, and did use the end of the brush to drag through the paint to make the veins. 

 Added some shadows to the edges of the leaves. The colors are interesting but, very muted so, they don't really have that vibe she has going on and that's OK I guess. :) 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 Loose Autumn Forest

 This week Kia is sharing this video tutorial seen here on YouTube by Harriet DeWinter on doing a loose Autumn Watercolor scene. That was such a pretty preview photo of the video I was really excited to try this one. 

I did start with a piece of Cold Press Arches wc paper cut to A7 and taped down. (this is the background first layers of paint. I probably should have made it taller but, this is what I did. 

 

First layers of foliage were added to the tops of the trees here along with some quick pencil lines for tree trunks with an water soluble pencil and some ground color. I probably should have done more splatters here but, I didn't think of it. 

 

Where I stopped painting, and honestly taping this paper down to the board did not do anything to stop the warp factor for me, It hardly ever does. So my thought at this point was why did you bother with that step? Who knows? but, it does make me wonder what kind of hold the tape most of these people are using. This is delicate surface gorilla tape here. and it does not hold it flat, on the other hand it does not rip up the paper after the fact either. 

 I did press this for a while in my big shot but, its still a little tweaked. I just mounted it really simply to some SU more mustard cardstock and had trimmed it down to A6 for a finished size. I am thinking I will be trying this one again some time. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at SCS. Thanks for stopping by. 

Watercoloring Old Trees

 This week Suz is sharing this video seen here on YouTube that is using brush strokes to create old looking trees, so it's a water coloring practice drill that creates a row of trees if you are in need of a forest card. 

 

I did use a water soluble pencil to do the un even ground line.

I was watching the video when I started painting the first tree on the left and by the time I started on the second tree it was over with haha. so, I did do the next batch of trees and leaves by memory and then I re-watched it to see the rocky/ground part as I did not see that at all the first time around. I only seemed to get the dry brush strokes correct for texture going the wrong direction so, I ended up filling in that ground with more green and browns a few times and so.

 

First layers of ground paints.

 Added more paint to the ground and some grass sprigs, and started thinking if you keep messing with this it is going to be so overworked it looks stupid and cauli-flowered... so. 

It's fairly funny to me how different the colors look between the cell phone shots ( all the ones on the table) and one taken with an DSLR. I do not remember if there was more paint on this layer but the blue tones in the Paynes Grey Blue here really seem much more deep and dark than they do in real life, so the greens are also off and darker. Such is life. :) I do like how the bark looks on the tree trunks and I will be doing more of that in the future I am sure. 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 Mistletoe

 Hello & Welcome, its my turn to host the watercoloring tutorial challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week. And a while back I had picked up some printed watercoloring books from this artist without knowing that she has a YouTube channel. So, I was tickled to find that and share her art with you all. I decided on this (she says simple) painting of Mistletoe going with that whole Christmas in July theme and It is a little long (30 minutes) and ends with a bit of Mixed Media. ( she adds silver leafing to the paper around the painting at the end before it becomes a card) that is totally optional. You can find this video here on YouTube called "How to paint a water Colour Christmas card with Billy Showell". 

The first bunch of rubber stamps I seriously started collecting were botanical ones from PSX and so, the idea of having the skills to color these is my incentive to learning I guess. and with that thought in the back of my head, my next thought I had was. I have never seen live Mistletoe in person. and it is July here. so, the first thing I did was I dug out some old Impression Obsession Mistletoe stamps and I stamped them on some scraps of Arches hot press watercolor paper (smooth) with Versafine morning mist ink to try and figure out the colors of green paint mixes. 

 I decided the colors were not bad ( going off what I remembered from her video) and I set them aside to dry. I was pretty intimidated about the whole draw a Mistletoe sprig without having a piece to look at and I had also been working on the Dirty Dozen August Sample and I had some boxes of chipboard and Emphera Christmas pieces on the edge of the table and I knew I had seen some mistletoe in there so, I grabbed this one out of the Simple Stories simple vintage fresh snow ephemera package and used it to give me an idea of where to sketch. 

 

This is some Arches cold press water color paper and I did use a water soluble pencil for this. 

So I added a layer of paint to the leaves trying to squint at it and decided if the colors would work and I had by this point totally forgotten about dragging a damp brush through them to get those reverse veins.

 

I did remember that one of those last steps for the leaves (but I did not remember it was a last step) was to flatten your brush and add texture, so I had jumped ahead and done that ha ha. its not that bad and I did keep adding paint to this. 

 This was me trying to get that subtle color on the largest berry in the cluster.

 I did end up adding more paint to the other two berries as well. 

 So the dots went onto the berries and a little more paint along the edges of the leaves. I did not try to do anything fancy with curls and shadows on them but, was trying for a little more definition I guess. 

 I did add a touch of Quin Gold to those berries here and then a little more shadows but, I think I am mostly done tossing paint on this and trying to decided how I want to finish it out as a card or something. I was thinking maybe a tag before I started and so that had me looking at those scrap pieces I stamped off and they did turn into little tags. 

 

The card on the left is 3" square and the ho ho ho is a Tim Holtz sticker. the smaller mistletoe was diecut with a circle stitched die from IO and the edges were inked with some Iced Spruce distress ink. I don't remember the MFG info of the splattered scalloped tag but, the square kraft one with the metal edge was premade like that. The red hemp string is I want to say Lawn Fawn and those smaller Mistletoe have crystal stickles glitter glue on the berries rather than paint. 

 I do know without looking I do not own silver gold leafing sheets. I do have some mixed color pots of gold leafing flakes but, I thought that would be too distracting for this little botanical sprig so, I decided to dig out the box of frame dies and liked the curves on this Mama Elephant Flourish Frame and it was big enough for the sprig so, I cut one with some grey velvet paper and I thought the color was eh, too gray. so, I seen this shimmery DCWV gold-ish silvery grey color paper in the file of special papers and cut one of those. that seemed to pick up the yellow tints to the paint better to my eye and I did end up cutting two more of the frame and I inked the edges of those ( it was not smooth cream paper ) with some iced spruce distress ink. to give it some stability and a little depth on the card front. Oh, and those are the 3 round #4 brushes I have two of them have been used over the years a lot and the third ( the one with a sharper tip) was new for this project. what I found was only one of them I could flatten the bristles to get that jagged looking edge for dry brushing on some texture over the leaves. And I did see that I do have brushes with a sharp tip, I did not really think I did on my round brushes but, I do have one Princeton brush that says it is a "long round" but, its like an 8 or a 10 maybe so, I did not try it. 

After I layered the gold tinted silver frame over the painting I just used some scissors to cut off the right side of the paper. (behind the frame) its glued to the frame and then the layers are under that. The Merry Christmas was stamped and diecut some time ago and came out of the tray of such things on the table, the edges also received some iced spruce and some foam dots to keep it level where it hangs off the frame. The printed paper here is from the Tim Holtz pad called Paper stash Christmas Noel from 2020. The base here is some 6" Textured Bazzill in a grey shade. I am pretty tickled with this and I will probably be watching more of her videos as I feel like even though I did not get all the steps I did get something I am pleased with the end result. 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.