Just Playing

 

Not too long ago I picked up this Opaque watercolor set by Fuumuui because, my feed on all my social media was filled with it and the colors of this palette really appealed to me so, I caved and ordered on from Amazon. And I've had it sitting here waiting for me to have a chunk of time to open it. So, last night I just did. I swatched it on the card that came inside the tin and also in a Lightwish swatch book as well.

It was a curious thing to have the paints be Opaque. It's almost a like a chalk-y type shades of paints. I did go over the printed lines to see how much opaque it would be. 

 

And I was able to get a little more water along to see how it would flow. this is really only 8 colors of paint in 3 values of the same color. 

 While I was swatching it, I was trying to think of what I wanted to try coloring with these paints and ended up using this Inky Antics Tammy DeYoung stamp ( # X2-9462-4L ) Which I stamped with some versafine morning mist ink on Arches cold press watercolor. This is a first layer of paints. 

 I wanted some shadows and I was trying to think of what to use so, I ended up pulling out a palette of Kuretake Gansai Graphite watercolors that my son gifted me with a while back and thought OK. this is going to work. 

 I used some Dr. PH Martins bleed proof white and some Daniel Smith shimmery antique gold paint and then maybe some sepia? for the twig hands & hair branches. 

The sentiment here is from the woodware Christmas Distress labels set because, I had left it on the table the other day when I was doing a sample for the last IC challenge and I just used the same paints on it. ( it was stamped with black ink) and I added some gold after the end giving it a grungy abstract art type look. both of the painted levels have Scotch foam mounting tape under them. 

 The cardbase here is some SU Perfect Plum cardstock cut to 5 1/2" square. I did add more shadows to this every time I walked by off and on today. I also changed the "white" threads and stitches on the small snowangels wings from to gold. I really like how the colors on the large snowangels coat merged together so, I am now thinking of what else I have that I could use these colors on as I really like the colors of this. That's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by.  

 

Piles & more Piles

 There are days when it feels like I am just rotating piles since I have tried to absorb so much of my mama's studio into mine. I have huge piles for my oldest niece but, I did keep back a bunch of things that I think I may play with eventually ( if I can stop tripping over the piles that is) and so, every so often I buy some new storage thing thinking this is going to help. today what came in the mail was this galvanized magazine holder from Amazon. ( its flimsy) it will do what it needs to do but, I need to have it bracketed by things sturdier than it to keep it from I think having those dividers snap off. I like metal things so when they knocked the price down a little I thought well, its about the same as buying a stack of the clear plastic ones from Micheals. ( I think the plastic ones are sturdier actually) 

 So I shoved it in the corner on top of the file cabinets managed to get some magazines into it. (I had a small pile of Stampers Samplers and take tens that I had not donated to the library and she had binders and binders full of magazines mostly from the UK that have tools in them, stamps or folders or dies. and I didn't mail the binders to my self just the magazines and tools so, they have been in piles. I started out putting them into job ticket holders from Amazon and ( I need many more packages of those) These are the same things I use to hold say Tim Holtz cling stamp sets. I just trim them down to 8 1/2" so that they work like pockets. Anyways the basket in front of that has stencils in it. Another thing that takes up some space that I keep moving around trying to find a home for them where I might actually look at them and or use them. They are kind of like embossing folders in my space and I know I have them but, they don't get used much. 

 This lead to me burying the top of the table and I need a little room to make some kind of a sample for the Inspiration challenge tonight. I had moved my markers and pens back to the table and this has not been touched since I put it on top of the file cabinet. I am debating about how much of those pens I should keep as. I find that what I am really enjoying the last few years is water coloring. I do sometimes pull out a pen to do some details into crevices but, for the most part I do not touch these I guess I should also make time to see how many of them are even juicy anymore. I will figure it out eventually but, I had to laugh at my self I used to play along with the Wednesday whats on your work desk blog hops way back when and I enjoyed seeing how other people organized things. So, if you ever wondered what it really looks like besides the finished projects or cropped shots on the table, this is a peek into the reality I am doing at the moment. I tell my self it will get better. I think I will be letting go of things faster than I intended to get there but, better days are coming and they are called Saturday & Sunday. Thanks for stopping by. 

Simple Thanks

 So, its been in the back of my mind for months now that the black glass mat that has such a reflection of the overhead light with camera still shots on it maybe the white one would work better. 

A lot of the shots I take I take them like this off to the side trying to not get the glare from the light. this is something I took last week. And then I had received the email from SSS about their clearance sale was half price and the white mat I've had on my wish list there was on the first page so, I ordered one.

 

And ta-da it does the same thing... so its not the color of the glass its just the glass it self. So I did spend some time last weekend cleaning off the table some more and putting more things away and I ended up moving the new (scratch free) white mat to the other side of these tables that are you know pushed together back to back so, now I have glass on both sides and I am OK with the fact that they are not matching. 

And then I got a text while I was painting on tonight's sample that a lady needed a thank you card for a conductor and it had to be ready today and it had to be musical. So I said only if it can be super simple. 

 I dug out my SU sheet music background stamp and I should say ( I do not read music so, its always a hard thing to guess which way is right side up ) I rely on the paper maybe having some lyrics or a few letters somewhere on it to give me a directional hint and this stamp has the note symbols but up and down so, I cannot tell which side of this stamp is "up" and so, when I went to the file cabinet to grab some cardstock this piece of previously printed music paper had a corner peeking up out of the cream loose papers and I thought even better. 

 I did trim it down a sliver because, when I went looking for 12" brown paper I found this deep bronze shimmer card and thought oh, that is special. and decided to use it for the base and then I cut the top layer of the Mega Thanks die with it. I did cut two more layers of a brown card for under the thanks so it could be elevated slightly. And hopefully she likes this because, this is where I stopped. That's about it from me, I hope you all are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

Virtual Stamp Night { Go 4 the Gold Continued }

 Good Morning, I hope you are staying warm and have some time for yourself this weekend. I decided to steal some for me in snatches yesterday and I did do a couple of simple cards for VSN that is going on now. And this morning when I came up the stairs this is what I seen. And I decided. that if I would like to do a few more of the challenges today I need to clear the decks.

 The view when I got to the top of the stairs.

 Where I actually stand to stamp. Yeah, the struggle is real and it looks like I lost.. haha. I won't put away everything you see here as I do create with what ever is in front of me and I "Know" that pad of printed paper that was used on the snowman card below just may have a forest scene print that will pull together a wall paper I seen for this weekends IC that Denise is hosting and LizBeths Icy VSN challenges... but, that will be later this morning maybe after the sun is up is the hope. 

 Kim is hosting a back to the basics challenge ( stamps, ink & paper only) and I had this drop piece of Bashful Blue card from my VSN sample I made for my challenge and I also have ( its hard to see but, on the first desk shot, I am making stamped sheets for pockets that I laminate for cling stamp storage and this sentiment is in one of those silly dog sets from Unity Stamps ( a new one I think ) and I knew it was over there so I stamped it on the bottom of this 3" square and then started looking for a face that would fit above it. ( This gal is one of the oldest stamps I have and I took her off the block a long time ago and my memory does not remember her name at the moment It is called Elegant Hat by Inkadinkado.) but, I did add a little bit of watercolor paint to this. ( very little water in the paint) and called it "good enough" 

 The next one I did finish is this long tall snowman for Vickkijo's made from snow challenge. I stamped it on some Arches cold press watercolor paper with Versafine morning mist and started adding DS watercolors to it, I also had stamped two of the twig arms on a scrap from when I cut around the body but, I was not able to successfully cut around those "fingers" so, the pivot was I decided about where he would stand on that Kaiser kraft music sheet print and then stamped one twig directly on the printed paper, glued him down, then waited for any paint on his body to be fully dry then stamped the cross body arm. There is watercolor on both of them and it was very little water so, the printed paper was fine with that. The base here is some Textured Bazzill and this one is A6 in real life. I did that sentiment tag a few weeks ago and I no longer remember the details. ( I might edit this if I find the packages as I am "cleaning" ) 

Those were the two I got done in the middle of the very early Saturday am night and then when we got home in the afternoon I stole some time from helping Hubs to do this one for Brenda's Mountains / Gold Mining challenge that had gone live when I went up stairs again.

The scene here is from the Stampin' Up! Beauty of Life set and its on some cold press Arches with a light first round of DS watercolor paints. ( My eyes seen a lack of shadows on this and I may add more paint to it later) This was cut with a large Spellbinders deckle die and the edges have some Scorched Timber DOX ink on it, its up on foam pop dots. That sentiment is from the Paper Artsy Sara Naumann set that I have not clue what the sets name is. maybe ESN40 ?I stamped some time around last Christmas and it was just sitting there waiting for me to diecut it, so I used a Spellbinders Perfect touch rectangle die on it to give it some interest on the edges and found this green in my ( I don't know what brands loose sheets hanging folder of green papers and made it A2.) And then I added some white gouache to the clouds and the water ripples because, that paper is not really a "bright" white and I wanted those highlights. That's about it from me at the moment. I am hoping to be back later with more progress. Thanks for stopping by. 

 

Happy Mail

 The brushes came, These are the ones I ordered. They do come in smaller sets but, it looked like the most bang for your buck to get the 5 piece set on the day I was looking. ( their prices go up and down) 

The box contains a thing for propping up your laptop on a table to give it that correct angle and let some of the heat escape kind of a thing. I had seen them on Amazon before Christmas and have one exactly like this on my wish list that my son gave me so, seeing the "gravity" idea in the painting I linked to in the post before this I was you know buying these brushes anyways and so, I tossed one of these in for to try with painting. It is this one in the green.

 what they look like out of the package. So, I got the smallest one wet and I had this scrap of wc paper here that was handy and started doing a "tree" type shape with it. I did not get my paint on the palette wet enough but, it did give me that how loose and wiggly those bristles are sense. I totally intend to play with this some more soon. 

 

Some other things that came in the mail was an order from Frantic Stamper ( I picked up a lot of yards of May Arts ribbons that will need wound and put away) and this Elizabeths crafts design called twiggy shapes ( dies) and one of them is a heart. 

So, I cut the heart from some kraft (paper bag colored) cardstock and used one of the flat spin top brushes to get some scratches of color onto it for texture and depth. Cut, the bow from the set from this scrap of watercolor paper and started adding yellows, oranges and reds to it. 

And this is ultimately what I ended up uploading to the gallery at Splitcoaststampers for the paint what ever you like challenge we are doing this week. This painting was previously started and shared at the beginning of the month when Kia had that pair of pastel landscapes. I painted this off the first one in the series and kept thinking it needed birds on the frozen ice in the bottom-ish area. And I got this Honey Bee stamps A2 die in the mail recently so, it was also in the pile off to the side and I thought, this may work so, I cut the scene from the center of that painting, cut some layer with watercolor paper for depth for the frame, cut the bottom piece from some kraft (paper bag colored card) and then this sentiment had been previously stamped and die cut and was in the milk glass tray on the table so, it worked. After it was all glued together I did paint that tiny trio of birds flying into the scene from the top right corner and called it Done. And that's about it from me, I hope you are doing well & thanks for stopping by. 

A Start on a Vertical Landscape

 This week the Watercoloring challenge tutorial team is painting what ever they want. and I spent some time being lost down the rabbit hole at YouTube finding new artists. I landed on this one from Rachel Parker Varner where she does a tree very loose with a very long bristled brush. She name drops a bunch of Artists names during this video and so, I watched it in bits and pieces because, I googled the other names she mentions. ( and ordered some of those brushes while I was at it, they are supposed to be here Today haha) I then seen this one from John Lovett I loved the colors and the detail with the softness, at the very end he puts on some may be white gouache and brushes it mostly away to soften those edges like doing a Vignette with your photo processing is the way my brain translated it. 

But, the very best video I stumbled across is this one from the American Watercolor Society seen here. By Thomas W. Schaller. This is so interesting and informative and just made sense to me the whole time he is painting. He is someone that I really feel like I was learning all kinds of things. but, one thing that stood out for me right in the beginning was the use of gravity for his painting and the whole paint the whole background with a curved wash. ( by the time I started mine I think I had not enough paint to it and I forgot a few colors) but, I had also started with a piece of cheap paper to just try it because, that was what the original person's video was, if you are not wrecking cheap paper as often as possible how can you know what works when and where? 

But back to the last video. He uses flat brushes to do his building shapes and I could not remember if I have flat brushes. ( I know I have a couple of either 3/4' or 1" ones for doing washes but, I didn't think I had any tiny ones. ) 

Which lead to me going to the jar and looking at the shapes of brushes I have collected since we started this watercoloring weekly challenge at SCS. (not that I started it but, I have played along since almost the beginning.) It's something my mama used to ask me all the time. Did you watercolor it? and I always said no for many years, to me it was only something "real" artists did. ( her mama's gpa was an oil painter) In the back of my mind the fact that I am coloring other peoples art ( stamped images) did not make me an artist. true story. Anyways that's a whole 'nother topic. I am trying to work on that thought and squelch it like a bug. So, I took another shot looking down so that if I were tempted to buy more brushes I could zoom in and see sizes on these.

And I thought OK, there are some smaller almost flat brushes here. ( they say they are spin top ones on the handle but, I think I may be able to use them like he did for dry brushing texture shapes type of a thought) which lead me to looking at my paint drawer. I took 90% of the cheap paints out, the colors are not me, too bright and too opaque and I do not find joy using them. I kept some of the prima sets and some of the shimmer sets but, the ones I started with are all in my re-gift them box.

 And I found all these dot cards in there. So, after this was shot I spent some time actually wetting them so I could see the colors better than what they came in like. not dramatically different but, a little bit. I am debating adding Naples Yellow and possibly Indian Yellow to my pile but, really yellow is not my favorite color to play with it's either hard to see or garishly bright. and I shy away from bold bright colors. 

And I started running out of time to actually PAINT something so, I started with this Artist Loft paper cut to A7 taped to a board so I could use the gravity idea. and I did a curved wash of colors all the way down it. I did have the board in my hand a lot and I think I had not quite enough paint and water but, I did do this. 

 The colors are barely there. but, I started with a yellow and then went to a coral, a red, a purple and then cobalt blue. so, I don't see the colors that well and I just decided to keep going as it was a little wet and it was propped up on the palette for a tiny bit of gravity.

 I don't very often do too many vertical scenes and I like painting trees so, I started with that in the middle of the sheet. the cheap paper was mostly leaning dry when I did that. 

And I dragged some of the blue down under the trees thinking snow. that there needs to be more life in it. maybe even a snowman haha. but, about this time I found out that my husbands hunting buddy was found in his home and this is as far as I got yesterday. His family does not live in this state and they rely on my husband to do all the things. 

 So, I don't have a "thing" to post in the gallery and I may be off line the next few days. We will see how it goes. its still part of that one day at a time deal. Last week was the anniversary of my mama's passing and There is not a day that goes by where I don't think she would have loved this when I see something or think some fairly snarky thought. If you read all that sorry, I know I ramble. I hope you are doing well and Thanks for stopping by. 

So, I could not sleep and I came upstairs to see what it looked like, ( it's still shy of 6 am here and the sun does not come up for a while) 

And this is what I found. When I tape paper ( it can be Arches Cotton, it can be cheap paper it does not matter) If I use this gorilla "delicate surface" masking tape to tape it to a piece of stiff chipboard. it will curl as it dries. So, I don't know if its the board or the tape but, I do not have good luck with these things not curling. I am still thinking about what to add to this scene next. Just thought I would add this is as something to remember to look for. supplies that maybe work better for taping the paper down. 
 

 

 

 

Playing with Postage Collage

 The last little while I have been making bits and pieces using various Postage Collage items I have on hand and I have done some online shopping ( happy bday to me) for some new things for the last little while and I have been taking some snap shots. And today when I came home from work I seen that there is a feature a Hat on the project for the ways to use it challenge and I had some of these Santa Postage stamps colored and cut out in the piles so, I used that as the top layer on this tag. 

 This Santa and Snowman postage stamps are really old ones from Hero Arts. They were stamped on some Artist loft watercolor paper which is pretty textured and colored with Daniel Smith watercolors and a bit of Windsor & Newton white gouache. they were cut out with scissors and the edges were inked with Vintage Photo DOX inks and they were set aside. because, I was on the stamp all the stamps mode.

I did mess around with the Impression Obsesssion Postage dies ( I have both sizes ) The holly and snowflake postage stamps are also very old Hero Arts ones. While I was at it with the reindeer tags I've done lately I also cut up some papers and cardstock with various tag dies, glued some together so I have a pile of those on hand as well. 

(that plaid Print is from this years Hobby Lobby pad called berry and pine.)

I did stamp more deer, over stamped them with more postage bits and pieces. Tried some postage backgrounds with Sand Dune ink on the Neenah enviornmental cardstock. ( its pretty subtle) I had dug out some big Unity Stamps backgrounds Santa Express ( is the one in the top left of this shot) I also pulled out the Frost & Fawn background along with the A little Christmas carol background stamps. Stamped some of those on the Environmental as well. 

 This framed Deer stamp is from Unity stamps called Hello Deer. The stamped and diecut words on this are from the Spellbinders set called Christmas Sentiments from July 2024. I really liked how that worked with the Tim Holtz / Simon Says Stamp set from one of the class kits over the last few months and so, When I seen that set on the Spellbinders sale list I decided to get it and the matching dies to have a few more of this style of words to have on hand to play with. The tags these are glued to are from the waffle flower nesting pierced tags die, 

 These big deer (Unity Stamps Winter Cheer & Deer set) were also stamped with Pinecone ink on some Neenah environmental, Inked with DOX vintage photo and cut with I forget. The postage edge die here is the Waffle Flower Nesting Postage dies. The tag here is from the Tall Tag frame from  My Creative Time. The Noel & Be Merry sentiment stamps are from Red Lead Paperworks Circle Christmas stamps set. Those were diecut with one of Anna Wights Impression Obsession stitched dies. ( the set name escapes me ) 

 So right about the time I had finished all of these yesterday. I had remembered I do have that Waffle Flower A2 Postage Collage Die set and I had seen Nichol Spohr's Video with that die used as a background for some cardfronts using bits and pieces from Tim Holtz. So, I fished that out next because, I knew I had not ever played with it. and I really loved how cool it looked when she masked and inked it before it was cut up. So, The color choices here were heavily influenced by what I had seen in her video. 

I knew I wanted white edges for my postage bits and pieces and I have a stack of this Strathmore Mixed Media paper so, I used that knowing it was sturdy and could take the inking.

I started with Iced Spruce DOX and then added Espresso to the corners over that. I do not own the stencil. I have mentioned I don't really like cleaning them and I wanted those edges white so, I just used some Spellbinders tapes and taped the diecut paper to the glass mat. 

 

and I collage stamped it from ( I have an entire container of stamps sets used in this blog post and lets just say it was a lot and go from there) 

 Using the tape worked well enough so, I did cut this up.

And I loved that enough to try it a couple more times.

 

 The base color of this one is lumberjack DOX. 

 But, I did go back to the Iced Spruce / Espresso combo for the third round. 

Which lead me to today. 

 Happy Mail ( my first order ) from Wintertime Crafts on etsy. I found this shop from that same video of Jill Norwoods that had the collage stamping on it and decided to give them a try. The stamps arrived packaged so cute and had a little gift charm and fern print with them. These are made in the U.S. and down in California so, they arrived really quickly to me.

 The stamp set's that I picked up. You can find her shop here. I love the scale of these and I had also dug out this CottageCutz Postage Stamp (4X4) die and cut it with Neenah Enviromental, taped off the edges. Inked it with some Lumberjack and Espresso DOX inks. and Decided to collage it. 

 The base tag here is an PTI one. tag sale something. I will look for its name. I put the Postage collaged diecut up on foam dots over it with some Black hemp string wrapped around it and then I tucked in a couple of the hero arts postage I had stamped and colored and inked earlier over the top. This view maybe show the sparkle added to the hat and mitten cuff along with the berries on the holly branch. ( its just Stickles) The little metal tree here is an old one from Making Memories. 

I forget who the from Santa sentiment is from but, the tiny banner its on was die cut from the Art Impressions stitched tag die set. The larger stitched banner is from the Pretty Pink Posh sentiment Strip Dies set that also came in the mail recently. And that's about it from me so far. This could just clean out my "to be uploaded someday folder" ha ha. I hope you're doing well, Thanks for stopping by. 
 

Watercoloring a hot mess

 This week Kia is sharing this video on YouTube seen here. I Did watch it, I did sketch the still life based off the inspiration photo she has here on Pinterest. I did print it out at work on Monday afternoon so that I had something to look at while I sketched. I knew I wanted to do it smaller so, I did do that with a piece of Arches cold press watercolor paper. 

 one thing though, I used a water soluble pencil as usual... and that is maybe not such a great idea. I do know that my very literal brain was not getting all the words in the closed captioning while I was watching the video I felt like information was missing. So, I don't know if it makes a difference with the noise on. 

 So, I started skipping around adding some paynes grey to the "black" areas while the yellow wash was still wet on the leaves and what ever those orange things are. I have no clue what colors she used but, her "black" looked purple to me and I cringed at that. And then what I did use it of course turned into a hot mess. I did see that with her video but, I am half way wondering if this would be easier on a larger scale. not sure, because you may just have room to correct the paint flowing over the lines where you want to have your (I don't know what to call this vine) The photograph looks like a vine to me. 

 I kept adding paint and even though its not warm here paint was drying everywhere so adding more wet to this various spots made a lot of blooms. and this has become a muddy mess to my eye. I did try to lift paint for the veins on the leaves but, that also failed. At this point I do not see any choice but to see what it does when the whole thing is dry. But tossing more paint on it while its wet is not working well for me. It sure is "impressionist style eh?" haha. I have not been so frustrated with a painting in a long time so that was a surprise and humbling. Yes, I did laugh and I also decided its time for more coffee as well. Might try dragging some thing through the leaf veins before its totally dry to see if I can get the yellow to come through. 

So I did do that, add one more layer of paint and I did use an Nib on a handle to do the veins on the leaves.

And I am letting it dry now because, although the colors are not that bad by the third layer of paint. I think it needs the next round to be glazed on to get some details I guess, and that might just toss the whole Impressionist thing out the window but, my brain looks at this and sees a lack of detail. 
 

And So, this is as far as I got. I did stop and let this dry and I will take another look at it tomorrow. 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.