New Art Impressions Watercolour release!

Oh, yes - it's that time of year again!  Art Impressions is releasing five brand new Ai Watercolor sets over on the blog today, and I am sharing two projects using 5195 WC Swing Set, and 5198 WC Mountain Set:

I had the idea to combine these two sets on my projects, so decided to use the two tire swings, and create a scene behind them.  I first sketched out my idea on scrap paper to determine exactly where I wanted things to be - nothing worse than being half way through a scene like this, and stamping your mountains too high!  It also helped me determine that my tree swing would be up on a hill overlooking a lake and the mountains beyond.  I started by diecutting my Canson XL watercolour paper with the 3 3/4" x 5" Rectangle Double Stitched Die, and I sketched in my tree with a pencil.  Using #N45 Cool Grey 10, I coloured and stamped the tire, and then masked it.  With my stamp positioner, I placed the little girl from 5053 WC Little Girls Set, coloured in #992 Sand.  With my #1 paintbrush, I added #850 Flesh to her skin, and #899 Redwood to her hair.  With the fine point of the #992 marker, I added short sleeves to her t-shirt.  #565 Deep Blue was painted as her jeans, and after adding more water to it, I used it to add shadows.  I added several layers of the N45 to the tire to build up the colour, creating it darker on the underside of it.  Next I stamped the mountains, after colouring them with 2nd generation #565, and a layer of #533 Peacock Blue over top.  I used my damp #4 paintbrush to soften the lines and pull out the colour to add shading to the mountains.  I painted in the hills in front of them, and the lake - pulling the colour from my palette, and used a light wash for the sky.

I used my Twintone marker in #41 Chocolate to outline my tree, and added a few texture lines to the trunk.  I painted shades of #969 Chocolate over the entire tree, keeping it darker on the undersides of the branches, and added #565 as shadows.  With the large leafy image from Foliage Set - 4051 coloured in #158 Dark Olive, I added greenery on either side of the swing, and softened it by dabbing with a damp brush.  I also used the Jumbo Grass stamp with #158 stamping it multiple times, then using the colour from them to paint a suggestion of a grassy bank.  I picked up #992 from my palette and painted in the shore line around the lake.  And finally, to add leaves to the trees, I used the larger leafy image from 4867 - WC Foliage Set 2 New.  Oh - and the last step was to use a fine point grey marker to draw in the chain of the tire swing.  I matted my image with a light kraft cardstock, and used pop dots to mount it on some textured dark grey cardstock.

Now I'm going to share what was my first version of my scene:

While there are some things about it that I'm really happy with (the tree, and the bunny nestled in the grass) - the mountains are just too dark, giving more of a snowy/wintry look that doesn't fit with the scene.

I kept going, adding a fair bit of colour to try to balance out the mountains, but couldn't quite make it work.  I'll still use it as a card for a friend, but it's good to learn from mistakes this way!

Be sure to check out what the other designers have come up with for the new release, and of course you can find all of them to buy over on the Art Impressions website.  Happy stamping!

Set of Ai Mini Critter Cards

I am sharing the 5th card that completes the set that I made using the Art Impressions WC Mini Critter Set.  I've put the little curled up fox next to the log from the WC Sitting Places Set:

 All of my cards used Tombow markers, coloured directly onto the stamps, and then the images were painted from scribbling the markers onto my palette.

 Here's a photo of the five cards that I've shown over the past few days all together.  I began by simply painting the images out of the Critter set, decided to pair them each with an object, and sprinkled flowers around them.  It was only when I searched for papers to make them into cards that I decided to create a set, each cut out in a different die shape.

All the items I've used can be found over on the Art Impressions website. (Stay tuned this week for a new release of Ai Watercolour stamps!)

4th Mini Critter Watercolour

A horizontal card today using the sweet deer from the WC Mini Critter Set from Art Impressions:

 I put him in front of the stump from the WC Rustic Containers set.  I really love painting this stump!  You can really go to town adding shadows to the crevices, and pulling out different tones in the wood.

I die cut my image out with the Hexagon Double Stitched Dies, matting it with a larger shape cut out with the dies, and elevating it with pop dots.

Mini Critter Card #3

Today I'm showing the curled up puppy from the WC Mini Critter set, paired with a weathered basket.  For each card, I paired the animal with a larger object/container, and then added some flowers and greenery in the same colour palette.

 I die cut my watercolour panel with a stitched square die, and mounted it with some pop dots.

Mini Critter #2

Here's the second of my five cards using the Art Impressions' WC Mini Critter Set:

 I love this sweet bunny, so I tucked him in beside the rocks from the WC Sitting Places set.

Mini Critter Watercolour

I made a set of 5 watercolour cards a few months ago, and realized that I hadn't shared them online.  Here's the first one featuring Art Impressions' WC Mini Critter Set:

 I masked the kitten, and stamped the chair behind him, then painted everything in with my Tombow markers:

I used several different oval dies to cut and mat my image, then used some 3d Pop Dots for a little added dimension.

Watercolor Weekend Wreath

I have been painting a lot of scenes lately with my watercolor stamps, and decided to try something a little different this week - a wreath.  I was inspired by the botanical style of graphic artwork that I've seen on Pinterest from a lot of stationery companies, and wanted to see if I could achieve a similar look with my stamps.  I'm pretty happy with my first effort:

I started by tracing a faint circle in pencil on my Canson XL watercolor paper to use as a guide.  I began with the leafy green image from 5126 WC Foliage Set 4, and #249 Hunter Green, stamping it around the circle in both first and second generation.  I wanted to have a strong contrast of greens, so I coloured the stem of a flower from 5008 WC Flower Set 3 in #126 Light Olive, and the petals in #565 Deep Blue.  To fill in a few areas, I used the tiny foxglove (quite possibly my favourite Ai watercolor flower!) from 4052 Flower Set coloured in #533 Peacock Blue.  I love the versatility of this stamp, I can stamp it repeatedly to be as long as I like, and because it's so tiny, it allows me to bend the blossom one way or another to suit my design.

Using two of the branches from 4964 WC Branches Set coloured in #969 Chocolate, I tucked branches in and around the wreath to finish it off.  I very lightly used my damp #1 paintbrush to dab the leaves and blossoms, keeping them mostly intact (I didn't want to lose the image definition).  I used a TT42 - Twintone marker in 42 Navy to add a few dots around the foxgloves to finish them off.  I looked at several of the birds from different sets, and found that this one from 5030 On The Sparrow Set in the Ai Bible Journaling collection fit perfectly inside the wreath - so I coloured him with #969 and used my stamp positioner to set him just inside the bottom of the wreath.  I pulled out the colour with my brush, and added in touches of #533 on his wings and tail.

I kept my wreath quite loose and open, making it slightly irregular - and really love the look! I can hardly wait to try a fall version.  I matted the image on some periwinkle cardstock and stitched it down with my sewing machine.  I tied some twine around my kraft cardstock base and attached the image with some pop dots.

Freshly Made Sketches #400!

I'm so happy to be playing along with the 400th sketch on Freshly Made Sketches this week!  In 2019, my challenge participation has been few & far between, but for years, this has been one of my favourite challenges.  (Scroll down to see the first time I used this sketch for their 100th challenge!)  *I am a day late in playing along with Inspired By, but I used it as my theme inspiration.  Here's what I came up with:

This Freshly Made sketch was their first ever challenge sketch, and also their 100th!  I knew when I saw it that I'd used it before, so after a little blog searching, I found my entry to the Freshly Made Sketches 100th challenge - here it is from August 23rd, 2013:

Stamp sets are The Greetery.

The first August Watercolor Weekend

I've made a scene that is close to home for me this week!  Summer time for me, growing up, was at our cabin on Kootenay Lake.  Kind of a rough & tumble type of building, lazy days on the beach, swimming in the warm water, paddling around in a rowboat, and staring at the gorgeous mountains.  Here's what I've created for the upcoming Watercolor Weekend on the Art Impressions blog:

Using a larger block, I positioned both my cabin from 4962 -WC Rustic Cabins Set and the rowboat from 5057 - WC Boat Set, as this allows me to determine the right placement.  I coloured them with my #969 Chocolate Tombow marker, then pulled out the colour with my damp #1 brush (this smaller paintbrush is amazing for scenes like this that are on a smaller scale!).  Using a post-it note, I masked the cabin and coloured up both trees from the 5010 - WC Tree Set 1 with #249 Hunter Green.  I did some second generation stamping behind the cabin to suggest some trees in the background.  Now I took my pencil and sketched in the hills, shoreline, mountains and lake.

With #992 Sand, I painted in the pathway and sandy shore, and used it to paint the boards and roof of the cabin.  With the tiny greenery in 5009 - WC Mini Flower Set and my #158 Dark Olive marker, I added some bushes around the cabin, and tufts of grass with the small grass from 4051 - WC Foliage Set 1.  With a wash of #158, I painted in the grassy foreground.  I used the tiny cluster of rocks from the 5128 - As The Deer Set from the Bible Journaling collection, and my #N57 Warm Grey to stamp different clusters of rocks along the shore.  I scribbled #565 Deep Blue onto my Palette, and picked it up with my #4 paintbrush, painting in the mountains and water.  I went in with a second darker layer of the 565 to add shadows around the rocks, boat, cabin and trees to give a little depth to my scene.

Finally, I mixed the #249(green) and #565(blue) to create the shade used to paint the far away line of trees.  I used #837 Wine Red to add colour to the boat & chimney, with a touch of #991 Light Ochre on the oars.  With a wash of #451 Sky Blue I painted in the sky. To finish, I used my sewing machine to run a line of stitching around the scene, matted it on grey, and adhered it to my base with pop dots.