New Year on the Ai blog

 We're starting a new year of Watercolour Weekend posts!  This is my project that will be on the Art Impressions blog this Saturday.

Even though it's January, I decided to kick off the new year with a big vase filled with tulips.

I coloured the kitten from 4873 - WC Cats Set in Tombow #969/565, stamped it on my Canson XL Watercolor paper, and covered it with a mask.  Using the same markers, I coloured up one of the vases from 5123 - WC Decorative Jar, and stamped it to appear just behind the cat.  The new 5475 - Flower Set 6 has two wonderful tulip stamps, so I used them both, coloured up in #N65 and stamped them repeatedly to fill up my vase.  Starting with a light wash layer, I painted my tulips in #755 and #946, then added layers to make some of the petals darker than others.  The stems and leaves were painted in #126 and #177, and I painted in a few extra leaves to fill in the background a little.  After pulling the colour out of the lines/edges, I painted #373 onto the vase, with a little #565 for shadowing.  I painted stripes of #N65 onto the kitten, darkened them with #565 and added a few tones of #946 to bring out the gold of the tulips.  I finished up by adding the suggestion of a shadow and a background with a wash of what was on my palette.  

I wanted a gingham background to match my vase, so I used a stencil set and some Distress Oxide ink to create my own.  My image was cut out with the 5064 Circle Double Stitched Dies.  Be sure to check out the Ai blog on Saturday to see what Dot & Tricia have to share, too!