Watercolor Weekend Scroll

I really love the Scroll Set that is part of the newest Bible Journaling release from Art Impressions.  I pulled it out, intending to make some Christmas tags with it... but I spotted this sentiment from the Gates of Righteousness Set that fit perfectly in the medium sized scroll... which led me to using the gate image, and was supposed to be a fall scene, but has ended up looking a little more springy.  So there we are.

I began by cutting out my Canson XL watercolor paper with two sizes of the 5062 - Double Stitched Rounded Rectangle dies.  I coloured the gate image from 5067 - Gates of Righteousness Set first in Tombow #565 Deep Blue, then #969 Chocolate overtop.  I stamped it off on scrap paper, and then onto my panel.  Since I knew that my card design would have the overlapping sentiment panel, the gate is positioned a little to the right of center.  I added the clay pot image on the left side, slightly below the gate so that it would appear in front of it.  With my damp #4 paintbrush, I softened the lines and pulled out the colour into the shadowed areas, as I wanted the gate to be white.  I did the same stamping method with the medium scroll image from the 5202 Scroll Set on the smaller rectangle.  I used a pencil to faintly sketch in the overlapping hillsides, having them meet right in the middle of the gate, as I wanted a sunrise to be centered there, and sketched in the narrow path also.

Using the vine image from 5073 - Bible Foliage Set, and #158 Dark Olive, I stamped the vine so that it wrapped up and around the gate, and spilled over the top, sometimes colouring only part of the image if I wanted a smaller sprig of greenery.  I filled in a few areas with the small leaf image from 5074 - Bible Flower Set, and used this to add foliage to the clay pot.  The spiky trio of blooms from the same set was coloured with #946 Gold Ochre and stamped in the pot and around the vine to created the floral clusters.  I used the Mini Foxglove stamp from Flower Set 4052 coloured in #565 to stamp the longer stems in the clay pot.  I picked up #947 Burnt Sienna from my palette, and painted it onto the pot, adding several layers to the edges to deepen the colour.  Using the shrubbery image from the Bible Foliage set, I coloured it in #249 Hunter Green, and stamped it on either side of the gate - wanting to create a bit of a hedge.  I touched all of the flowers and foliage with my damp brush, then picked up #158 from my palette and painted in the hillsides and grassy foreground.  I used it with the small grass image from the Bible Foliage set to add tufts of grass in and around the cobblestones.  The path was painted with #992 Sand.  I used #565 to add shadows between the slats of the gate, and as texture on the stones. With my scene pretty much complete, I used my fine point Twintone marker in 42 Navy to add definition and shadows to the stones, bushes and gate.  I also used the finer point of my #946 to add darker yellow shades to the flowers.  I used the #946 to paint the sun and it's glow, and added #565 to the sky.

My scroll was looking a little grey and gloomy next to my image, so I added in touches of the #946 Gold Ochre, which really brightened the scroll, and I added a little of the 565 and 158 around it to mimic the grass & sky - I quite like the effect.  

 Both images were given an 1/8" soft grey matt, and glued onto a subtly patterned background paper.  The sentiment is adhered with pop dots, and positioned about 3/8" above the top edge of the 5 1/2" square card.  Be sure to check out the Ai blog on Saturday to see what Dot & Tricia are sharing for the Watercolor Weekend post.