Bicycle Watercolour

I have my first June Watercolour Weekend post to share today - (it'll be on the Ai blog on June 1st).  It's my first time painting the new-for-2019 #5124 WC Bicycle Set and I've paired it with the #4873 WC Cats Set:

I began by colouring the bicycle with my #N65 Cool Grey Tombow Marker, and stamping it onto my watercolour paper.  I pulled out the colour with a damp #4 brush, leaving more colour where the shadows fall.  I was careful not to colour a portion of the rear tire, leaving a space to stamp my cat with the help of my stamp positioner (also in #N65.) Using the trailing vines from the #5126 WC Foliage Set 4 and my #158 Dark Olive marker, I stamped them several times in the bike's basket without reinking.  With the floral cluster from the #4052 Flower Set, I stamped multiples with #565 Deep Blue in the basket and around the wheels.  From the #5009 WC Mini Flower Set, I used the cluster of tiny flowers, and stamped them into the 2nd basket, using #158 & #565.  Also from the Mini Flower Set, I used the dot cluster in #991 Light Ochre, filling in the basket and around the tires.  I used the tiny foliage stamp with #158 to fill in some greenery, and then used #856 Chinese Red/#158 to add the tall flowers to the basket.  With a damp brush, I dabbed the flowers & greenery, not wanting to lose the definition of the images.

Using the two longer grasses from Foliage Set 4, and the small grass from the #4051 Foliage Set, I added grasses around the tires & cat, and then pulled out the colour with my paintbrush to add a green wash on the ground.  Taking #565 from my palette, I painted in the sky and added shadows to the bike, ground and cat.  I wanted just a touch of colour on the bicycle, so I picked up #515 Light Blue off of my palette and added it to the metal parts.  I used #850 Flesh to add colour directly to the cat's ears.

I die cut my image with a Wonky stitched square die, matted it with dark blue cardstock and adhered it to my base with pop dots.  The final card is 5 3/4" square.  

Pand-tastic!

I had fun colouring up all the panda images from Art Impressions' new Funny Farm release: Pandtastic #5113.  I was supposed to make two of them for Creativation, but kept going and wound up with four cards using these wonderful Lawn Fawn papers:

Wedding Ideas for Watercolor Weekend

April showers bring May showers where I'm from!  But I am all about May flowers today, and have a trio of free-form wedding ideas to share for my Art Impressions Watercolor Weekend post.

I've had the idea for the dress card floating around in my head for awhile, ever since I created my "Love" card a few months ago (scroll down to the end of my post, and you'll see my first effort in this style of stamping).  I wanted to use the Ai floral & foliage stamps to create a sort of life-like embroidery look, and kept going to create a grouping of wedding themed items.

 I sketched the outline of my dress in pencil, directly onto my watercolor paper, and indicated where I wanted the higher points around the hemline to be.  Using the Daisy Bunch in Flower Set 4052 and my #703 Pink Rose marker I stamped it three times without reinking, multiple times around the hem, and again on the neckline.  I repeated this with the tiny cluster from 5009 WC Mini Flower Set and #676 Royal Purple.  For my last flower, I used the Mini Foxglove from Flower Set 4052 and #533 Peacock Blue, stamping it three times in a row to create the flower stalk.

With my #126 Light Olive marker, I coloured just the tip of both of the trailing ivy stamps in 4876 WC Foliage Set 2 New to fill in the greenery, making sure to change directions to keep it looking random.  I used my damp #4 paintbrush to dab at each of the flowers & foliage to soften each image and enliven the colours.  It became apparent where the holes were on my 'embroidery', so I used the small green from 4876 WC Foliage Set 2 and #158 Dark Olive to fill in those white spaces.  I left these as is, not using my paintbrush, as it defined the shape of the foliage a bit more.  I traced the pencil outline of the dress with #533, and used this colour with my brush to add some shading.  I picked up #565 Deep Blue from my palette and painted a background wash around the dress.  Finally, I went in with all of the markers directly onto the image to add in a few deeper colours.  The sentiment is from WC Sentiment Set 2, stamped in Versafine Onyx Black.  I used my sewing machine to stitch the panel to some coordinating cardstock and adhered it to my base with pop dots, then glued on some irridescent sequins.

The colours and stamps are all the same for my other two projects.  For this card, I sketched in the cake and the table, just adding foliage to each layer.  I sketched in a heart as my cake topper, and painted in a few ripples on the tablecloth.  I stamped this sentiment separately, matting and stitching around it, and adhered it with pop dots going off the right edge.

As a fun little add on, I painted a bouquet and drew in a ribbon bow underneath it to use as a placecard:

Once you own a few of the basic flower & foliage sets (or really just one of each!) you have everything you need to create your own projects like these.  Head on over to the Ai blog this Saturday to see what the rest of the Watercolor Guest Design Team have to share.

Here was my first cluster-stamped project:

New Ai Funny Farm (Hedgehogs!)

Anything hedgehogs makes for a great card, in my opinion!  There are two new Funny Farm sets available in the Art Impressions store this spring, and today I have two Hedgehogs #5112 cards to share:

 These are quick and easy to colour images, so you can make a few cute cards in no time.  I used Copic markers, matted and adhered to my card bases with pop dots.

I'll be back with more Funny Farm (pandas!) soon - Happy stamping!

Happy Mother's Day!

A very Happy Mother's Day to all my fellow Mothers out there!  One of my children is currently in Thailand, the other will be joining us later to visit his Grandmother and then a family dinner - so life is good.  We almost lost my Mother-in-law over Christmas this year, but she pulled through, and we're so happy to spend another Mother's Day with her.  Here's what I came up with for her:

I used a pre-printed paper from Echo Park's Flower Market 6x6 pad, so all it needed was a stamped sentiment and the happy word that I die cut from some patterned paper.  I stitched it to some cardstock, added a few sequins, and popped it up with pop dots.

Ai Housework set!

Two more fun Art Impressions cards to share today, from their newest Work & Play release, now available on the Ai website.  Here's what I made with the Housework Set #5110:

 Once again, Ai comes out with a fun set, filled with great sentiments we can all relate to.  My first card is a 5 1/2" square one, coloured with Copic markers, and featuring some stitching from my sewing machine.

And that little cat on the Roomba??  Cracks me up.

New Ai Work & Play sets!

The Work & Play line by Art Impressions has some really fun sets that work for a lot of the people in our lives, and they are launching two new sets today on the Ai blog.  I was lucky enough to make a few samples for the Creativation show back in January, so here are the first two that I made using Loads of Fun set #5111:

I coloured up the images with Copic markers, and used some stitched dies to cut out the images and sentiments.  There are a whole bunch of wonderful sentiments included in the sets 

Here's the launch video from the Ai booth at Creativation - you may recognize a few cards!


I'll be back with a few more over the next little while.  Check out all the new sets here on the Ai blog.

Spring/Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop!

It's the start of the first Coffee Lover's Blog Hop of 2019, and it makes me so happy to be playing along!  I haven't missed one yet, so my streak continues...  I am using two stamp sets from Sugar Pea Designs today, along with these Cream & Sugar papers from Doodlebug Designs that I've been hoarding for a little bit.  Here's what I came up with:

 The coffee cup is from the Mugs & Kisses stamp set, and the sentiment is from Parisian Holiday.  I've used the sketch from the May Mix It Up Challenge on the Sugar Pea Designs blog.

 Enjoy the hop!

Cottages - Watercolour Weekend

I really love painting scenes with Art Impressions Watercolor stamps... and I especially love all the cottages and cabins that Bonnie brought out last year.  I've paired up one of them from 4958 - WC Cottages Set (this is SO typical of historic cottages in my area), with the footbridge from the just released 5122 - WC Bridge Set, inking them both with Tombow #969 Chocolate:

Using the smaller tree from 5010 WC Tree Set 1, I stamped it several times on each side of the cottage with my #969, then softened all the lines with a damp #4 paintbrush, pulling out the colour on the tree trunks, and on the footbridge. I coloured my #177 Dark Jade marker onto the tiny foliage sprig in the 5009 WC Mini Flower Set, stamping it repeatedly to get 2nd & 3rd generation foliage in the trees, and creating shrubs around the house.  Also from the Mini Flower Set - I used my #533 Peacock Blue to colour the tiny floral cluster (it looks like dots!) stamping it around the shrubs to suggest purpley/blue flowers.  Dabbing at them with my damp brush softened the images, and intensified the colours.

I initially drew the tufts of grass directly with my #076 Green Ochre marker, but since it is quite a yellow/green, my scene had a bit of a fall feel to it, and I was aiming for spring!  So I picked up the #177 green off of my palette, and painted a wash of green grass, darkening up the grasses directly with the marker as well.  I painted the pathway with #992 Sand, and added #491 Glacier Blue onto the roof & door.  I painted a touch of #856 Chinese Red onto the chimney, then went in with the fine point of it to sketch in the bricks.  I picked up #565 Deep Blue with my brush to paint in the stream, and then added the shadows to the windows, pathway, around the house & trees, and finally painted in the sky.

With my scene complete, I always walk away for a few hours (days?) and come back with a fresh eye.  I wanted to darken things up a little, so I went back in with both my 177 and 565 markers, adding grasses and flowers in the deeper tones.